The utility of the model for end‐stage liver disease score: A reliable guide for liver transplant candidacy and, for select patients, simultaneous hospice referral
Valentina Medici, Lorenzo Rossaro, Jacob A. Wegelin, Amit Kamboj, Junko Nakai, Kelli Fisher, Frederick J. Meyers – 30 July 2008 – Patients with chronic liver disease are referred late to hospice or never referred. There are several barriers to timely referral. First, liver transplantation (LT) and hospice care have always been perceived as mutually exclusive. Yet the criteria for hospice referral and for LT are more similar than different (for example, advanced liver disease and imminent death). Second, physicians, patients, and families have not had a reliable metric to guide referral.