Criteria That Promote Timely Referral to Specialist Palliative Care for Patients With Advanced Heart Failure.

Patients with heart failure are at risk for significant morbidity and mortality1 and can benefit from specialist palliative care (SPC). Currently, referrals are often inconsistent and made late in the illness trajectory.2,3 Chang et al4 conducted an international Delphi study in 2021 in which an expert panel identified a set of criteria for referral of patients with advanced heart failure for SPC. However, the timeliness of consults based on these referral criteria remained unclear. In this study, we examined the perceived timeliness of consults based on a list of criteria for SPC referral as determined by an international panel of experts.