The Impact of COVID-19 Surge on Clinical Palliative Care: A Descriptive Study From a New York Hospital System

In spring 2020, New York experienced a surge of patients hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) disease, as part of a global pandemic. There are limited data on populations of COVID-19–infected patients seen by palliative care services. To describe a palliative care population at one New York hospital system during the initial pandemic surge. This repeated cross-sectional, observational study collected data on palliative care patients in a large health system seen during the COVID-19 outbreak and compared it with pre-COVID data. Palliative service volume surged from 678 (4% of total admissions) before COVID-19 to 1071 (10% of total admissions) during the COVID-19 outbreak. During the outbreak, 695 (64.9%) of the total palliative patients tested positive for the virus. Compared with a preoutbreak group, this COVID-19–positive group had higher rates of male (60.7% vs. 48.6%, P