Table 2 Barriers and risks of the implementation of the palliative care in the intensive care unit

Critical care clinicians are not aware of the palliative care needs of ICU patients due to competing demand

Inadequate palliative care screening for ICU patients

Difficulty in communicating adequately with the patient's family at the right time

Clinician concerns regarding palliative care hastening death

Inadequate palliative care training for ICU medical staff

Palliative care staff unavailability

Patient/family misconception of palliative care

Time and cost to train critical care clinicians for the palliative care

[67,68,69]

Increasing post-traumatic stress disorder in the patient’s surrogates when discussing about the patient’s prognosis

Given the baseline severity of illnesses, harmful consequences from medical errors in patients receiving palliative care may be harder to identify

[37]

[70, 71]