Scholars@Duke
Christopher Jones

Christopher Jones

Associate Professor of Medicine
Medicine, Geriatrics and Palliative Care
Christopher.Jones@duke.edu
DUMC 3688; Blue Zone Rm 0527, 40 Duke Medicine Circle, Durham, NC 27710
DUMC Box 2706, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Patients with Myeloproliferative Neoplasms.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 20, 2024 Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are a group of rare chronic progressive blood cancers that vary widely in clinical presentation, yet all patients have a risk of disease progression and thrombotic complications. Diseases include primary myelofibrosis, p ... Full text Link to item Cite

An App Platform-Facilitated Collaborative Palliative Care Intervention for Outpatients With Interstitial Lung Disease: A Pilot Randomized Trial.

Journal Article Am J Hosp Palliat Care · August 19, 2024 Rationale: Outpatients with interstitial lung disease often experience serious symptoms, yet infrequently receive palliative care. Objective: To determine the feasibility and clinical impact of a mobile application (PCplanner) in an outpatient setting. Met ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stepped Palliative Care for Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Journal Article JAMA · August 13, 2024 IMPORTANCE: Despite the evidence for early palliative care improving outcomes, it has not been widely implemented in part due to palliative care workforce limitations. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a stepped-care model to deliver less resource-intensive and more ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Providing Care for People With Disabilities.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2024 Palliative care (PC) clinicians are well poised to help people with disabilities (PWD) live well in the context of serious illness. PC prioritizes person-centered care with a focus on function, autonomy, and quality of life. This approach aligns with princ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Diagnosing, Categorizing, and Addressing Fatigue.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · July 25, 2024 Fatigue is a multifactorial symptom that is commonly faced by patients with cancer, chronic disease, and other serious illnesses. Fatigue causes suffering across biopsychosocial domains and affects patients and their loved ones. In this article, a consorti ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Language Pathology.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · May 2024 This article provides guidance on the integral role of physical therapy, occupational therapy (OT), and speech language pathology (SLP) in palliative care (PC), underlining the necessity for effective communication between physicians and therapists, the im ... Full text Link to item Cite

Grief Training in Palliative Care Fellowships.

Journal Article J Pain Symptom Manage · April 2024 INTRODUCTION: No prior study has assessed grief and bereavement curriculum in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (HPM) fellowship programs in the United States. METHODS: A 14-item survey was created and distributed to Accreditation Council for Graduate Medica ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparing Knowledge and Perceptions of Palliative Care Among Neuro-Oncology Patients, Caregivers, and Providers to a Representative U.S. Sample

Conference American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine · January 1, 2024 Background: Primary brain tumors (PBTs) pose a significant health challenge, affecting patients and their caregivers. While early integration of palliative care (PC) has shown benefits in advanced cancer, its integration for PBT patients, particularly glio ... Full text Cite

Dangerous Variation or Patient-Centered Care? Palliative Care and Pain Providers’ Comfort, Experiences, and Approaches when Treating Cancer Pain With Coexisting Aberrant Behaviors

Journal Article American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine · January 1, 2024 Background: Patients with cancer-related pain are at high risk for aberrant drug use behaviors (ADB), including self-escalation, diversion and concurrent illicit substance or opioid misuse; however, limited evidence is available to guide opioid prescribing ... Full text Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know about Multiple Sclerosis.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · November 2023 Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, immune-mediated, neurodegenerative condition of the central nervous system, with distinct challenges due to its heterogeneous presentation, prognostic uncertainty, and variable clinical course of neurological and non-n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Cachexia.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2023 Cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome that is common in cancer and chronic disease. It is often underdiagnosed and therefore goes untreated or undertreated. Cachexia causes suffering across biopsychosocial domains and affects patients and their loved ones. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Leveraging the Electronic Health Record for Data Collection and Quality Improvement.

Journal Article Journal of palliative medicine · June 2023 As palliative care (PC) programs rapidly grow and expand across settings, the need to measure, improve, and standardize high-quality PC has also grown. The electronic health record (EHR) is a key component of these efforts as a central hub of care delivery ... Full text Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Urological Care.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · February 2023 Patients receiving palliative care (PC) can present with or develop a host of urological needs or complications. These needs can include attention to sexual health, urinary incontinence, genitourinary bleeding, and urinary tract obstruction by benign, mali ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Buprenorphine.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · January 2023 Pain management in palliative care (PC) is becoming more complex as patients survive longer with life-limiting illnesses and population-wide trends involving opioid misuse become more common in serious illness. Buprenorphine, a generally safe partial mu-op ... Full text Link to item Cite

General symptom overview: Importance of side effect management, CINV, anorexia, and cachexia

Chapter · January 1, 2023 Along with understanding patients’ goals, values, and preferences, symptom assessment and management is a cornerstone of palliative care (PC) practice. Using a clinical case, this chapter focuses on systematic assessment of PC needs including physical, psy ... Full text Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Navigating the Needs of Adults with Intellectual Disabilities.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · December 2022 As many people with intellectual disabilities (ID) live longer, the need for access to quality palliative care (PC) rises. People with ID realize significant barriers and inequities in accessing health care and PC. The need for integrated disability and PC ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Disorders of Consciousness: A Focus on Traumatic and Anoxic Brain Injury.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · October 2022 Palliative care (PC) teams commonly encounter patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) following anoxic or traumatic brain injury (TBI). Primary teams may consult PC to help surrogates in making treatment choices for these patients. PC clinicians mus ... Full text Link to item Cite

Palliative care experience and perceived gaps in training among transplant hepatology fellows: A national survey.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · July 2022 Despite the likely benefits of palliative care (PC) for patients with cirrhosis, physician experiences and perspectives about best practices are variable. We aimed to assess PC experience and gaps in training among transplant hepatology fellows. We conduct ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Solid Organ Transplantation.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · July 2022 Solid organ transplantation (SOT) is a life-saving procedure for people with end-stage organ failure. However, patients experience significant symptom burden, complex decision making, morbidity, and mortality during both pre- and post-transplant periods. P ... Full text Link to item Cite

COP2ING With a New Normal: Navigating the Return to Society for Older Adults With Dementia and Their Caregivers.

Journal Article J Palliat Care · April 2022 COVID-19 has stressed the healthcare system in ways our society has not seen before. Less visibly, elderly patients and their caregivers have been stressed as well, both by the virus and by the public health measures required to slow its spread. After mont ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Delivering Antiracist Care to Black Americans.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · March 2022 Racial disparities, including decreased hospice utilization, lower quality symptom management, and poor-quality end-of-life care have been well documented in Black Americans. Improving health equity and access to high-quality serious illness care is a nati ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Music Therapy and Art Therapy.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · January 2022 Palliative care is provided by an interdisciplinary team, including physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other disciplines based on need. Music therapists and art therapists are becoming increasingly available to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Moving "OurCareWishes" to the Bedside: A Step-Wedge Pragmatic Trial

Conference JOURNAL OF PAIN AND SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT · 2022 Cite

Not Your Granddaddy's Billing and Coding Rules: Changes in 2022 and Beyond

Conference JOURNAL OF PAIN AND SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT · 2022 Cite

Communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: evaluation study on self-perceived competences and views of health care professionals.

Journal Article Eur Geriatr Med · December 2021 PURPOSE: The aims of this study were to describe communication experiences while wearing a mask during COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, to identify possible mask-related barriers to COVID-19-adapted communications and to investigate whether the ABC mnemonic (A: ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Strokes.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · December 2021 Stroke is a common cause of long-term disability and death, which leaves many patients with significant and unique palliative care (PC) needs. Shared decision-making for patients with stroke poses distinct challenges due to the sudden nature of stroke, the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Prognostication in Children.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · November 2021 Pediatric palliative care (PPC) is different from palliative care (PC) for adults. However, conceptualizing PPC remains cumbersome due to the high heterogeneity of often rare diseases, the high diversity of disease trajectories, and the particular difficul ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Multicenter Qualitative Analysis of Medical Student Narratives After a Palliative Care Elective.

Journal Article Am J Hosp Palliat Care · September 2021 BACKGROUND: The medical student experience of a clinical elective in palliative care (PC) remains understudied. Reflective narrative interventions can help students hone narrative competency skills, make sense of their clinical experiences and shed light o ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Prognostication in Critical Illness and Heart, Kidney, and Liver Diseases.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · September 2021 Specialty palliative care (PC) clinicians are frequently asked to discuss prognosis with patients and their families. When conveying information about prognosis, PC clinicians need also to discuss the likelihood of prolonged hospitalization, cognitive and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Prognostication in Oncology, Dementia, Frailty, and Pulmonary Diseases.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · September 2021 Prognostication has been described as "Medicine's Lost Art." Taken with diagnosis and treatment, prognostication is the third leg on which medical care rests. As research leads to additional beneficial treatments for vexing conditions like cancer, dementia ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Trauma and Emergency Surgery.

Journal Article Journal of palliative medicine · July 2021 There is growing interest in, and need for, integrating palliative care (PC) into the care of patients undergoing emergency surgery and those with traumatic injury. Thus, PC consults for these populations will likely grow in the coming years. Understanding ... Full text Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About End-Stage Liver Disease.

Journal Article Journal of palliative medicine · June 2021 End-stage liver disease (ESLD) is an increasingly prevalent condition with high morbidity and mortality, especially for those ineligible for liver transplantation. Patients with ESLD, along with their family caregivers, have significant needs related to th ... Full text Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Seizures at the End of Life.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · May 2021 Seizures are physically burdensome and emotionally distressing for patients, families, caregivers, and clinicians. Patients with neurological diseases are at increased risk of having complex, difficult-to-control seizures at the end of life. Palliative car ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Medical Decision-Making Capacity Assessment.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · April 2021 Palliative care (PC) clinicians treat seriously ill patients who are at increased risk for compromised decision-making capacity (DMC). These patients face profound and complex questions about which treatments to accept and which to decline. PC clinicians, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Teaching Trainees How to Conduct a Family Meeting.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · February 2021 The family meeting is an essential component of effective palliative care (PC); however, medical students and junior doctors-in-training often consider leading a family meeting to be a daunting task. The old "see one, do one, teach one" axiom should not ap ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Jewish Patients.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · December 2020 Judaism, one of the world's oldest religions, claims an estimated 14.3 million members worldwide. There is great diversity in terms of identity, practice, and belief among people who identify as Jewish. As of 2017, 40% of the global Jewish community reside ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Cognitive Impairment and Institutional Care.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · November 2020 Most long-term care (LTC) residents are of age >65 years and have multiple chronic health conditions affecting their cognitive and physical functioning. Although some individuals in nursing homes return home after receiving therapy services, most will rema ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Interventional Pain and Procedures.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · October 2020 Pain is a common symptom for patients with advanced illness. Palliative care (PC) clinicians are experts in pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatment of pain and other symptoms for these patients. True multimodal pain control should include consideratio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Opioid Use Disorder.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · September 2020 Since the prevalence of substance use disorders, and opioid use disorder (OUD) specifically, remains high and represents a public health crisis, it is critical that palliative care (PC) providers have a broad understanding of this class of chronic, yet tre ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Bereavement and Grief.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2020 Palliative care (PC) focuses on caring for the whole person, from birth to death, while managing symptoms and helping to navigate medical complexities. Care does not stop at the time of death, however, as assisting patients, families, and fellow clinicians ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ethical Challenges in Care of Patients on Mechanical Circulatory Support at End-of-Life.

Journal Article Curr Heart Fail Rep · August 2020 PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Although the utilization of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices is increasing, ethical dilemmas regarding device deactivation and dying process persist, potentially complicating delivery of optimal and compassionate care at end- ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · June 2020 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder with enormous palliative care (PC) needs that begin at the time of diagnosis. Although it is an uncommon disease, clinicians who work in PC or hospice are lik ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Serious Illness in Pregnancy.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · May 2020 Palliative care (PC) teams are increasingly being called upon to provide care earlier and more remote from end of life. Because much of the field has grown out of hospice and geriatric care, most teams have little to no experience caring for pregnant women ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know When Caring for Patients with Brain Cancer.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · March 2020 The diagnosis of an aggressive, primary brain tumor is life altering for those affected and too often portends a poor prognosis. Despite decades of research, neither a cure nor even a therapy that reliably and dramatically prolongs survival has been found. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Psychosocial and Family Support.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · February 2020 Palliative care (PC) is perhaps the most inherently interdisciplinary specialty within health care. Comprehensive PC is delivered by a core team of physicians, nurses, social workers, spiritual care providers, pharmacists, and others who address the broad ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · January 2020 Physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) is a specialty of medicine focused on optimizing function and quality of life for individuals with physical impairments, injuries, or disabling illnesses. Given the sometimes acute nature of the loss of function ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Patients with Hematologic Malignancies.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · November 2019 Hematologic malignancies differ in several important ways from solid organ cancers, and warrant a unique approach to palliative care (PC) integration. As PC has moved upstream from end-of-life care, PC clinicians are increasingly asked to see patients with ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Telepalliative Care.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2019 The field of telehealth is rapidly growing and evolving across medical specialties and health care settings. While additional data are needed, telepalliative care (the application of telehealth technologies to palliative care) may help address important ch ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Providers Should Know About Caring for Veterans.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · June 2019 Many of America's Veterans have unique medical and psychosocial needs related to their military service. Since most medical care received by Veterans occurs outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, it is imperative that all me ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Psychopharmacology.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · May 2019 Palliative care (PC) providers often prescribe psychotropic medications to address psychological and physical suffering of patients with serious medical illness. Consideration must be given to the significant medical comorbidities of the patient when selec ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Patients with Neurologic Illnesses.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · February 2019 Patients with neurologic illnesses are commonly encountered by palliative care (PC) clinicians though many clinicians feel uncomfortable caring for these patients. Understanding how to diagnose, treat, communicate with, and prognosticate for neurology pati ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · October 2018 Parkinson's disease (PD) affects 1%-2% of individuals older than 60 years and is the 14th leading cause of death in the United States. People with PD, across all stages of the disease, suffer from a significant symptom burden that includes many nonmotor sy ... Full text Link to item Cite

Expanding Palliative Medicine across Care Settings: One Health System Experience.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · September 2018 BACKGROUND: The success of our hospital-based Palliative Care program stimulated requests to duplicate the program across the health system continuum of care. OBJECTIVE: To develop a model of care focused on a high-need, high-cost population that could be ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Mental Health and Serious Illness.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2018 Palliative care has long recognized the importance of treating the whole person to address a patient's physical, mental, and spiritual suffering. To address psychological suffering, palliative care often draws upon the pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy off ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ten Tips Palliative Care Pharmacists Want the Palliative Care Team to Know When Caring for Patients.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · July 2018 As palliative care (PC) moves upstream in the course of serious illness and the development of drugs and their indications rapidly expand, PC providers must understand common drug indications and adverse effects to ensure safe and effective prescribing. Ph ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ten Tips Nephrologists Wish the Palliative Care Team Knew About Caring for Patients with Kidney Disease.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · April 2018 Many patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease have unmet palliative care (PC) needs. Physical and emotional symptoms are common. Some, like uremia and fluid overload, improve with dialysis, but the increasing age of patients i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top 10 Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Radiation Oncology.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · March 2018 As palliative care (PC) moves upstream in the course of advanced illness, it is critical that PC providers have a broad understanding of curative and palliative treatments for serious diseases. Possessing a working knowledge of radiation therapy (RT), one ... Full text Link to item Cite

Improvements in Patient and Health System Outcomes Using an Integrated Oncology and Palliative Medicine Approach on a Solid Tumor Inpatient Service.

Journal Article J Oncol Pract · September 2017 PURPOSE: Early palliative care (PC) improves outcomes for outpatients with advanced cancer. Its effect on hospitalized patients with cancer is unknown. Herein, we report on the influence of a novel, fully integrated inpatient medical oncology and PC partne ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top 10 Tips for Using Advance Care Planning Codes in Palliative Medicine and Beyond.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · December 2016 Although recommended for all persons with serious illness, advance care planning (ACP) has historically been a charitable clinical service. Inadequate or unreliable provisions for reimbursement, among other barriers, have spurred a gap between the evidence ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top 10 Tips About the Physician Quality Reporting System for Palliative Care Professionals.

Journal Article J Palliat Med · August 2016 The U.S. healthcare system is shifting from a fee-for-service (FFS) system to a valued-based reimbursement system focused on improving the quality of healthcare. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented the Physician Quality Reporti ... Full text Link to item Cite

Top ten inpatient palliative medicine billing and coding mistakes (and how to fix them this week).

Journal Article J Palliat Med · March 2015 Palliative care (PC) has undergone incredible growth in the last 10 years, having gained subspecialty status and penetration into 85% of hospitals over 300 beds. The comprehensive services provided by multiple members of the PC team combined with low reimb ... Full text Link to item Cite

Palliative care in advanced cancer in older adults: Management of pain, fatigue, and gastrointestinal symptoms

Journal Article Clinical Geriatrics · November 1, 2011 This article is the third in a continuing series on cancer in older adults. The goal of this series of articles is to highlight the ways in which the diagnosis and management of cancer in older adults differ from the diagnosis and management of cancer in y ... Cite