TY - JOUR T1 - It is unclear whether specialist palliative care teleconsultation leads to an improvement in patient symptom scores JF - Evidence Based Nursing JO - Evid Based Nurs SP - 1 LP - 1 DO - 10.1136/eb-2017-102842 VL - 21 IS - 1 AU - Doris Howell Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://ebn.bmj.com/content/21/1/1.1.abstract N2 - Commentary on: Hoek PD, Schers HJ, Bronkhorst EM, et al. The effect of weekly specialist palliative care teleconsultations in patients with advanced cancer—a randomized clinical trial. BMC Med 2017;15:119.Routine assessment of symptoms during palliative care teleconsultation is essential, but awareness to the potential for attention to symptoms to add to patients’ suffering is needed. Research in palliative care needs to take into consideration the issues of recruitment/retention, and studies must be planned to ensure adequate power.Clinically meaningful endpoints for symptom measures are needed to measure both within-group and between-group change.There is a growing body of evidence that earlier integration of palliative care in the trajectory of advanced illness can improve quality of life. This has led to increasing calls for specialist palliative care services that are scalable and can be delivered outside of urban centres.1 … ER -