Elevating End-of-Life Care: Implementing General Inpatient Hospice Services on a Medical Oncology Unit.

This article focuses on a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project that implemented a general inpatient (GIP) hospice training program and clinical pathways on a medical oncology unit to enhance end-of-life (EOL) care for patients with terminal cancer. GIP hospice provides specialized symptom management for hospitalized patients whose needs cannot be met at home, yet many inpatient nurses lack sufficient training in EOL care. The project demonstrated statistically significant improvements in nursing staff’s knowledge, comfort, and competency related to GIP hospice admission processes, symptom management, communication with dying patients and their families, and medication administration. Although death anxiety among nurses did not significantly change, the findings support the feasibility and usability of routine EOL training to improve oncology nurses’ ability to deliver quality hospice care, ultimately benefiting patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.