Automatic Palliative Care Referrals: Acceptability and Uptake by Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer

People living with advanced (incurable) cancer are not routinely provided timely palliative care. Often, people do not know they can receive palliative care at the same time as cancer treatments as an added layer of support. Cancer doctors must often prioritize helping patients with their cancer treatments over palliative care. To overcome these barriers, this study asks “Can we develop a process so that everyone recently diagnosed with advanced cancer is automatically phoned by a palliative care provider and offered a consultation? And would patients find this phone call acceptable?” We will work with patients and providers to design the process and language for these automatic referrals. We will then test the acceptability of automatic referral with people recently diagnosed with advanced (stage IV) lung cancer. If acceptable, automatic referrals will overcome existing barriers to palliative care referral and guarantee EVERY patient is offered early access to palliative care.