scholarly journals Patient–physician conversations about life-sustaining treatment: Treatment preferences and participant assessments

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Lone Doris Tuesen ◽  
Hans-Henrik Bülow ◽  
Anne Sophie Ågård ◽  
Sverre Maintz Strøm ◽  
Erik Fromme ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ◽  
Nursing Home Residents ◽  
Treatment Preferences ◽  
Comfort Care ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Seriously Ill ◽  
Very High

Abstract Objective In 2019, the Danish parliament issued legislation requiring Danish physicians to clarify and honor seriously ill patients’ treatment preferences. The American POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) document could be a valuable model for this process. The aim of the study was to examine patients' preferences for life-sustaining treatment and participant assessment of a Danish POLST form. Methods The study is a prospective intervention based on a pilot-tested Danish POLST form. Participant assessments were examined using questionnaire surveys. Patients with serious illness and/or frailty from seven hospital wards, two general practitioners, and four nursing homes were included. The patients and their physicians completed the POLST form based on a process of shared decision-making. Results A total of 95 patients (aged 41–95) participated. Hereof, 88% declined cardiopulmonary resuscitation, 83% preferred limited medical interventions or comfort care, and 74% did not require artificial nutrition. The preferences were similar within age groups, genders, and locations, but with a tendency toward younger patients being more in favor of full treatment and nursing home residents being more in favor of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Questionnaire response rates were 69% (66/95) for patients, 79% (22/28) for physicians, and 31% (9/29) for nurses. Hereof, the majority of patients, physicians, and nurses found that the POLST form was usable for conversations and decision-making about life-sustaining treatment to either a high or very high degree. Significance of results The majority of seriously ill patients did not want a resuscitation attempt and opted for selected treatments. The majority of participants found that the Danish POLST was usable for conversations and decisions about life-sustaining treatment to either a high or a very high degree, and that the POLST form facilitated an opportunity to openly discuss life-sustaining treatment.

scholarly journals Changing Culture Around Serious Illness: The VA Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 751-752
Author(s):  
Joan Carpenter ◽  
Robert Burke
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Treatment Preferences ◽  
Veterans Health ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Comfort Care ◽  
Goals Of Care ◽  
Serious Illness ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
Seriously Ill

Abstract Discussing and documenting goals of care and life-sustaining treatment decisions with seriously ill patients is a widely endorsed practice by healthcare and professional organizations. In 2018, The Veterans Health Administration (VA) initiated a new national policy to standardize such practices, the Life Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative (LSTDI), which included a coordinated set of evidence-based strategies and practice standards for conducting, documenting, and supporting high-quality goals of care conversations (GoCCs); staff training to enhance skills in conducting, documenting, and supporting GoCCs; standardized, durable electronic health record tools for documenting patients’ goals and preferences; and monitoring and information technology tools to support implementation and improvement. In this symposium, we will describe the first 20 months of implementing the LSTDI across the VA, the largest integrated healthcare system in the US. The first paper will focus on the factors associated with documentation of a GoCC and treatment preferences. The second paper will present findings describing facilitators and barriers to implementing the LSTDI and identifying factors that promote high rates of LSTDI documentation. The third paper examines patient level outcomes associated with a documented goal of comfort care, specifically the odds of receipt of hospice/palliative care, hospitalization, or ICU admission. This symposium will provide attendees with important information regarding a wide range of individual and system strategies to enhance the care of seriously ill older adults by engaging patients with serious illness in GoCCs and documenting their preferences for treatment in durable, easily accessible notes and orders.

Informed consent and the aftermath of cardiopulmonary resuscitation: Ethical considerations

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Bjorklund ◽  
Denise M Lund
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Hospital Setting ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Communicative Skills ◽  
Code Status ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients ◽  
Seriously Ill

Background: Patients often are confronted with the choice to allow cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should cardiac arrest occur. Typically, informed consent for CPR does not also include detailed discussion about survival rates, possible consequences of survival, and/or potential impacts on functionality post-CPR. Objective: A lack of communication about these issues between providers and patients/families complicates CPR decision-making and highlights the ethical imperative of practice changes that educate patients and families in those deeper and more detailed ways. Design: This review integrates disparate literature on the aftermath of CPR and the ethics implications of CPR decision-making as it relates to and is affected by informed consent and subsequent choices for code status by seriously ill patients and their surrogates/proxies within the hospital setting. Margaret Urban Walker’s moral philosophy provides a framework to view informed consent as a practice of responsibility. Ethical considerations: Given nurses’ communicative skills, ethos of care and advocacy, and expertise in therapeutic relationships, communication around DNAR decision-making might look quite different if institutional norms in education, healthcare, law, and public policy held nurses overtly responsible for informed consent in some greater measure. Findings: Analysis from this perspective shows where changes in informed consent practices are needed and where leverage might be exerted to create change in the direction of deeper and more detailed discussions about CPR survival rates and possible consequences of survival.

Choices of seriously ill patients about cardiopulmonary resuscitation: Correlates and outcomes

Resuscitation ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 87 ◽  
Author(s):  
RS Phillips ◽  
NS Wenger ◽  
J Teno ◽  
RK Oye ◽  
S Youngner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients ◽  
Seriously Ill

Pilot of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative Among Veterans With Serious Illness

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-76
Author(s):  
Karleen F. Giannitrapani ◽  
Anne M. Walling ◽  
Ariadna Garcia ◽  
MaryBeth Foglia ◽  
Jill S. Lowery ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Department Of Veterans Affairs ◽  
Do Not Resuscitate ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Goals Of Care ◽  
Chart Abstraction ◽  
Integrated Health Care System ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients ◽  
Seriously Ill

Background: Prior to national spread, the Department of Veterans Affairs implemented a pilot of the life-sustaining treatment decisions initiative (LSTDI) to promote proactive goals of care conversations (GoCC) with seriously ill patients, including policy and practice standards, an electronic documentation template and order set, and implementation support. Aim: To describe a 2-year pilot of the LSTDI at 4 demonstration sites. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting/Participants: A total of 6664 patients who had at least one GoCC. Results: Descriptive statistics characterized patient demographics, goals of care, LST decisions, and risk of hospitalization or mortality among patients with at least one GoCC. Participants were on average 71.4 years old, 93.2% male, 87.1% white, and 64.7% urban; 27.3% died by the end of the pilot period. Fifteen percent lacked decision-making capacity (DMC). Nonmutually exclusive goals included to be cured (7.6%), to prolong life (34%), to improve/maintain quality of life (61.5%), to be comfortable (53%), to obtain support for family/caregiver (8.4%), to achieve life goals (2.1%), and other (10.5%). Many GoCCs resulted in a do not resuscitate (DNR) order (58.8%). Patients without DMC were more likely to have comfort-oriented goals (77.3% vs 48.8%) and a DNR (84% vs 52.6%). Chart abstraction supported content validity of GoCC documentation. Conclusion: The pilot demonstrated that standardizing practices for eliciting and documenting GoCCs resulted in customized documentation of goals of care and LST decisions of a large number of seriously ill patients and established the feasibility of spreading standardized practices throughout a large integrated health care system.

“There were more decisions and more options than just yes or no”: Evaluating a decision aid for advanced cancer patients and their family caregivers

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Bakitas ◽  
J. Nicholas Dionne-Odom ◽  
Lisa Jackson ◽  
Jennifer Frost ◽  
Margaret F. Bishop ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Advance Care Planning ◽  
Decision Aid ◽  
Care Planning ◽  
Serious Illness ◽  
Early Palliative Care ◽  
Advance Care ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients ◽  
Seriously Ill

AbstractObjective:Few decision aids are available for patients with a serious illness who face many treatment and end-of-life decisions. We evaluated the Looking Ahead: Choices for Medical Care When You're Seriously Ill® patient decision aid (PtDA), one component of an early palliative care clinical trial.Method:Our participants included individuals with advanced cancer and their caregivers who had participated in the ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends) early palliative care telehealth randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted in a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical center, and affiliated outreach clinics in rural New England. ENABLE included six weekly patient and three weekly family caregiver structured sessions. Participants watched the Looking Ahead PtDA prior to session 3, which covered content on decision making and advance care planning. Nurse coaches employed semistructured interviews to obtain feedback from consecutive patient and caregiver participants approximately one week after viewing the Looking Ahead PtDA program (booklet and DVD).Results:Between April 1, 2011, and October 31, 2012, 57 patients (mean age = 64), 42% of whom had lung and 23% gastrointestinal cancer, and 20 caregivers (mean age = 59), 80% of whom were spouses, completed the PtDA evaluation. Participants reported a high degree of satisfaction with the PtDA format, as well as with its length and clarity. They found the format of using patient interviews “validating.” The key themes were: (1) “the earlier the better” to view the PtDA; (2) feeling empowered, aware of different options, and an urgency to participate in advance care planning.Significance of results:The Looking Ahead PtDA was well received and helped patients with a serious illness realize the importance of prospective decision making in guiding their treatment pathways. We found that this PtDA can help seriously ill patients prior to the end of life to understand and discuss future healthcare decision making. However, systems to routinely provide PtDAs to seriously ill patients are yet not well developed.

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