Dr Ravi Parikh Presents Groundbreaking BE-a-PAL Data on Default Palliative Care Referrals

At the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, Ravi Parikh, MD, MPP, presented the final results of the BE-a-PAL study. This study investigated the potential of an algorithm-based default palliative care referral among patients who have stage III or IV lung or noncolorectal gastrointestinal cancer, building on his prior work of using electronic nudges to increase referrals to palliative care.

These newest findings show physicians allowed referrals in 89% of the cases in the intervention arm, which encompassed weekly default electronic health record notifications to oncologists as prompts for specialty palliative care referrals in high-risk patients.

Parikh is assistant professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and director, Human-Algorithm Collaboration Lab at the Perelman School of Medicine.