March 4, 2022: ACP COVID: A Trial to Evaluate an Advance Care Planning Video and Communication Skills Training Intervention for Older Adults During an Evolving Pandemic (Angelo E. Volandes, MD, MPH; James A. Tulsky, MD; Sophia N. Zupanc, BA)

Posted on by terren.green@duke.edu

Speaker

Angelo E. Volandes, MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital

James A. Tulsky, MD
Chair, Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Sophia N. Zupanc, BA
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Keywords

Advanced Care Planning; VitalTalk; ACP DECISIONS; Unstructured data; Patient engagement; Clinician engagement

Key Points

  • ACP COVID combines the VitalTalk program and ACP DECISIONS videos to help patients and families navigate difficult decisions around advanced care planning.
  • VitalTalk is a non-profit organization providing evidence-based communication training. VitalTalk trained health care providers to communicate advanced care planning options with patients.
  • The ACP COVID study compared advanced care planning documentation rates at three specific timepoints: 6 months prior to COVID-19(control period, Sep 2019-Mar 2020), during the first wave of COVID-19(control period, March 2020-Sep 2020), and during the time period when vaccines were first rolled out in New York state(intervention period, Dec 2020-June 2021).
  • Advanced care planning conversations best happen in the outpatient setting, not in the hospital right before intubation.
  • Almost 24% of patients in the intervention period had Advance Care Planning conversations which was significantly higher than the control periods.

Discussion Themes

The clinician training program gave clinicians the skills to cope with the implications of the pandemic and led to increased clinician engagement.

 

 

Read more about ACP-COVID.

 

 Tags

#pctGR, @Collaboratory1