Assessing Quality in Advance Care Planning Documentation: A Survey of Current Methods

Background High-quality advance care planning (ACP) documentation facilitates the communication of patients’ wishes as they progress in their disease course and travel between health care settings. No consensus exists regarding evaluation of documentation quality, and diverse strategies for assessing quality have been adopted in clinical ACP studies. Methodology We conducted a literature review in PubMed and via manual search to identify clinical studies that assessed ACP quality or completeness as an outcome measure over a 5-year period. Studies that treated ACP as a binary outcome variable (present or absent), studies that took place outside of the US, and studies in pediatric populations were excluded from review. Results We identified 11 studies for inclusion in our review. Across study methodologies, the following 8 quality domains were identified: discussion frequency, documentation accessibility, discussion timing, health care proxy, health goals or values, scope of treatment/code status, prognosis/illness understanding, and end of life (EOL) care planning. Each study assessed between 2 and 6 domains. Divergent methods for assessing quality domains were utilized, including manual qualitative analysis and natural language processing techniques. Conclusion Defining and measuring the quality of documentation is critical to developing ACP programs that improve patient care. Our review provides an adaptable framework centered around quality domains.

Capturing what matters: A retrospective observational study of advance care planning documentation at an academic medical center during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: Advance care planning allows patients to share their preferences for medical care with the aim of ensuring goal-concordant care in times of serious illness. The morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the importance and public visibility of advance care planning. However, little is known about the frequency and quality of advance care planning documentation during the pandemic. Aim: This study examined the frequency, quality, and predictors of advance care planning documentation among hospitalized medical patients with and without COVID-19. Design: This retrospective cohort analysis used multivariate logistic regression to identify factors associated with advance care planning documentation. Setting/participants: This study included all adult patients tested for COVID-19 and admitted to a tertiary medical center in San Francisco, CA during March 2020. Results: Among 262 patients, 31 (11.8%) tested positive and 231 (88.2%) tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. The rate of advance care planning documentation was 38.7% in patients with COVID-19 and 46.8% in patients without COVID-19 ( p = 0.45). Documentation consistently addressed code status (100% and 94.4% for COVID-positive and COVID-negative, respectively), but less often named a surrogate decision maker, discussed prognosis, or elaborated on other wishes for care. Palliative care consultation was associated with increased advance care planning documentation (OR: 6.93, p = 0.004). Conclusion: This study found low rates of advance care planning documentation for patients both with and without COVID-19 during an evolving global pandemic. Advance care planning documentation was associated with palliative care consultation, highlighting the importance of such consultation to ensure timely, patient-centered advance care planning.

Multiple Hospital Transfers Among MOQI Nursing Home Residents: The Influence of Race

Missouri Quality Initiative (MOQI) was a CMS-funded enhanced care and coordination provider demonstration project (2012-2020) that successfully reduced avoidable hospitalizations and improved nursing home (NH) care quality. Little is known about the influence of race in multiple hospital transfers from NHs. Using a mixed-methods approach we analyzed hospitalization root cause analysis data from 2017-2019 for 1410 residents in 16 MOQI NHs. There were 113 residents who were transferred 609 times. Those with multiple transfers (four or more transfers/year) were compared by race and key characteristics (e.g., code status, diagnosis). A subset of residents with multiple transfers were examined qualitatively to identify and describe key cases. Findings suggest that Black residents have a higher probability for multiple transfers. Findings highlight the need for transfer prevention efforts for Black residents including early assessment and intervention, early/frequent discussion about goals of care, advance directives, resuscitation status, and family/resident understanding of treatment effectiveness.

Code Status Transitions in Patients with High-Risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

Background: Patients with high-risk AML often experience intensive medical care at the end of life (EOL) such as hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Despite their poor prognosis, patients with AML and their caregivers often have substantial misperceptions of their prognosis, which may lead to difficult code status transitions near the end of life. However, studies examining code status transitions in patients with AML are lacking. Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study of 200 patients with high-risk AML enrolled in supportive care studies at Massachusetts General Hospital between 2014-2021. High-risk AML was defined as: 1) new diagnosis ≥ 60 years, or 2) relapsed/refractory AML. Two physicians used consensus-driven medical record review to characterize code status transitions from time of diagnosis to death and identify patient, family, and palliative care involvement. Code status was coded as 'full' (confirmed or presumed), 'restricted' (i.e., do not resuscitate), or 'comfort measures only' (CMO). We used logistic regression to explore whether patient factors or features of the code status discussion were associated with the time between the last code status transition and death. Results: At diagnosis of high-risk AML, 86.0% of patients were 'full code' (38.5% presumed, 47.5% confirmed) and 8.5% had restrictions on life-sustaining therapies. Overall, 57% (114/200) of patients experienced a code status transition, with a median of two transitions (range 1-8) during their illness course. Overall, a total of 206 code status transitions were described across the cohort. Median time from diagnosis to first code status transition was 212 days (range 7-4507), and from last transition to death was 2 days (range 0-350). Most of these final code status transitions (71.1%, 81/114) were transitions to CMO near the end of life. Only 60.5% of patients (69/114) who underwent a code status transition participated in their last code status change. In contrast, patients and families participated in 87.7% (100/114) of the last code status transitions and palliative care was involved in 42.1% (48/114). A substantial minority of last code status transitions occurred in the ICU or emergency department (26.3%, 30/114). We identified three processes leading to code status transitions (Table 1): 1) pre-emptive conversations prior to any clinical change (15.6%, 32/206); 2) anticipatory conversations at the time of acute clinical deterioration (32.2%, 66/206); and 3) futility conversations after acute clinical deterioration, focused on withdrawing life-sustaining therapies (51.0%, 105/206). Older age (B = 0.07, P < 0.001), and receipt of non-intensive chemotherapy (B = 1.42, P = 0.003) were associated with a longer time from the last code status transition to death (Table 2). In contrast, futility conversations were associated with shorter time from last code status transition to death (B = -2.84, P < 0.001) compared to pre-emptive or anticipatory conversations. Conclusions: Almost half of patients were "presumed full code" at the time of diagnosis of high-risk AML and most experienced code status transitions at the end of life focused on futility of life-sustaining therapies after acute clinical deterioration. These results suggest that goals of care discussions occur too late in the typical illness course of patients with poor prognosis, high-risk AML. Interventions focused on enhancing patient engagement in timely discussions regarding their end of life care preferences are warranted. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures LeBlanc: AbbVie: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Advisory board; Travel fees, Speakers Bureau; BMS/Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Travel fees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Consultancy, Other: Advisory Board; Daiichi-Sankyo: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Advisory board; Flatiron: Consultancy, Other: Advisory board; Astellas: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Advisory board; American Cancer Society: Research Funding; Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Research Funding; AstraZeneca: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Advisory board, Research Funding; Agios: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Advisory board; Travel fees, Speakers Bureau; Duke University: Research Funding; Otsuka: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other; NINR/NIH: Research Funding; CareVive: Consultancy, Other, Research Funding; Helsinn: Consultancy, Research Funding; Heron: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: advisory board; Amgen: Consultancy, Other: travel; UpToDate: Patents & Royalties; Seattle Genetics: Consultancy, Other: Advisory board, Research Funding.

Code status documentation at admission in COVID-19 patients: a descriptive cohort study

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 pandemic pressurised healthcare with increased shortage of care. This resulted in an increase of awareness for code status documentation (ie, whether limitations to specific life-sustaining treatments are in place), both in the medical field and in public media. However, it is unknown whether the increased awareness changed the prevalence and content of code status documentation for COVID-19 patients. We aim to describe differences in code status documentation between infectious patients before the pandemic and COVID-19 patients.SettingUniversity Medical Centre of Utrecht, a tertiary care teaching academic hospital in the Netherlands.ParticipantsA total of 1715 patients were included, 129 in the COVID-19 cohort (a cohort of COVID-19 patients, admitted from March 2020 to June 2020) and 1586 in the pre-COVID-19 cohort (a cohort of patients with (suspected) infections admitted between September 2016 to September 2018).Primary and secondary outcome measuresWe described frequency of code status documentation, frequency of discussion of this code status with patient and/or family, and content of code status.ResultsFrequencies of code status documentation (69.8% vs 72.7%, respectively) and discussion (75.6% vs 73.3%, respectively) were similar in both cohorts. More patients in the COVID-19 cohort than in the before COVID-19 cohort had any treatment limitation as opposed to full code (40% vs 25%). Within the treatment limitations, ‘no intensive care admission’ (81% vs 51%) and ‘no intubation’ (69% vs 40%) were more frequently documented in the COVID-19 cohort. A smaller difference was seen in ‘other limitation’ (17% vs 9%), while ‘no resuscitation’ (96% vs 92%) was comparable between both periods.ConclusionWe observed no difference in the frequency of code status documentation or discussion in COVID-19 patients opposed to a pre-COVID-19 cohort. However, treatment limitations were more prevalent in patients with COVID-19, especially ‘no intubation’ and ‘no intensive care admission’.