Ethics meetings in the intensive care unit: evaluation of the collaboration with a palliative care team

Abstract

During the health crisis at the end of 2020, the critical care medical teams and the mobile palliative care team of the Valenciennes hospital center elaborated a partnership in the form of biweekly ethics meetings. After two years of implementation, a descriptive study was carried out to investigate the expectations and needs of the critical care teams regarding this system.

An online survey was sent to the medical teams in early 2022. The results show that the framework of the meetings is considered appropriate and facilitates exchanges. The feeling of a therapeutic impasse is one of the reasons for presenting the case in a meeting, as well as the presence of a legal risk or a refractory symptom. The meeting allows to clarify the therapeutic plan, to answer the legislative requirements and to support the medical team in its decisions of limitation or withdrawal of intensive care treatment.

This first stage of our reflection has made it possible to highlight the elements that are conducive to the sustainability of the project, namely, the presence of elements of stability and security, and the feeling of usefulness for the patient's course.