Project description:BackgroundInterprofessional health care team members consider advance care planning (ACP) to be important, yet gaps remain in systematic clinical routines to support ACP. A clearer understanding of the interprofessional team members' perspectives on ACP clinical routines in diverse settings is needed.MethodsOne hundred eighteen health care team members from community-based clinics, long-term care facilities, academic clinics, federally qualified health centers, and hospitals participated in a 35-question, cross-sectional online survey to assess clinical routines, workflow processes, and policies relating to ACP.ResultsRespondents were 53% physicians, 18% advanced practice nurses, 11% nurses, and 18% other interprofessional team members including administrators, chaplains, social workers, and others. Regarding clinical routines, respondents reported that several interprofessional team members play a role in facilitating ACP (ie, physician, social worker, nurse, others). Most (62%) settings did not have, or did not know of, policies related to ACP documentation. Only 14% of settings had a patient education program. Two-thirds of the respondents said that addressing ACP is a high priority and 85% felt that nonphysicians could have ACP conversations with appropriate training. The clinical resources needed to improve clinical routines included training for providers and staff, dedicated staff to facilitate ACP, and availability of patient/family educational materials.ConclusionAlthough interprofessional health care team members consider ACP a priority and several team members may be involved, clinical settings lack systematic clinical routines to support ACP. Patient educational materials, interprofessional team training, and policies to support ACP clinical workflows that do not rely solely on physicians could improve ACP across diverse clinical settings.
Project description:Purpose of Review: A significant number of pregnancies are complicated by a fetus with a life-limiting diagnosis. As diagnoses are made earlier in the pregnancy, families experience anticipatory grief and are faced with navigating goals of care for a baby that has yet to be born. With the support of the care team, families can begin to grieve, plan, and make meaningful memories during the duration of the pregnancy, the birth of their baby, and life of the child. Creating a palliative care birth plan, which expands beyond the traditional concept for delivery planning to include prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal care has become an important method for parents to process the diagnosis, for parents to document their wishes, and for members of the care team to communicate with the goal of supporting and enhancing the experience of the family. This articles reviews recent and relevant literature on the importance of birth planning and the role of perinatal palliative care when a life-limiting fetal diagnosis is made. Recent Findings: The process of birth planning is an important component of perinatal palliative care. Through this process, families can express their fears, values, hopes, and wishes. It also offers an opportunity for providers to communicate these wishes for the remainder of the pregnancy, the delivery, birth, and time afterwards. This has been demonstrated to decrease maternal stress and promote family centered care. Summary: Perinatal birth planning is an important component of perinatal palliative care when a fetus has a life-limiting diagnosis. The process of birth planning can be supportive and therapeutic as well as an important communication tool. With multiple practices and designs of perinatal palliative care programs, there are no standard tools even though important components have been identified. Ultimately, the strategies outlined here can be used as advance care planning tools.
Project description:IntroductionAdvance care planning (ACP) is an essential discussion between a health care provider and a patient about their future care during serious illness. In clinical practice, high-quality ACP may be addressed with an interprofessional approach. Role-playing is an ideal method to practice both ACP and shared decision-making before having these conversations with patients.MethodsThis asynchronous role-playing workshop is prefaced with two prerecorded 25-minute videos for faculty and student preparation with one introducing ACP concepts, and one depicting a patient-physician ACP discussion. During the 2-hour workshop, students complete four role-play ACP scenarios with the following roles: patient, family member, nurse, nurse practitioner, and physician. Students rotate through different roles guided by scripts, and have a fact sheet for each scenario detailing prognostic information for disease processes. The role-play works optimally with three nursing students, three medical students, and one faculty facilitator per group. Facilitators are provided with a timeline, a guide for debriefing, and an evaluation rubric.ResultsThe survey data from 85 students spread over four course offerings were summarized. When asked both if learning objectives were met, and to reflect on the clinical relevance, teaching effectiveness, and the overall workshop experience, most participants reported a good to excellent rating.DiscussionThis role-play activity allows students to practice ACP and shared decision-making, both with patient and family presence, and in premeeting rounds with the health care team. ACP exposure during student training helps trainees recognize the impact of high-quality interprofessional conversations on the care patients want and ultimately receive.
Project description:BackgroundAdvance care planning (ACP) enables people to define, discuss, and record preferences for treatment and care. Measures of ACP behavior are lacking in the Netherlands. We aimed to translate, culturally adapt and validate the 34-item ACP Engagement Survey into Dutch.MethodsFollowing validation guidelines, we tested content validity, internal consistency, reproducibility, construct validity, interpretability and criterion validity among persons with and without chronic disease.ResultsForward-backward translation indicated the need of only minor adaptations. Two hundred thirty-two persons completed baseline and retest surveys; 121 were aged ≥60 years. Persons with chronic disease (n = 151) considered the survey more valuable than those without (66 vs. 59, p < 0.001, scale of 20-100), indicating good content validity. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.97) and reproducibility (intraclass correlation: 0.88) were good. Total ACP Engagement was higher among persons with chronic disease than those without (2.9 vs. 2.4, p < 0.01, scale of 1 to 5), indicating good psychometric support for construct validity and interpretability. Positive correlations of the ACP Engagement Survey and the General Self-Efficacy survey indicated good criterion validity (p < 0.05).ConclusionsThis study provided good psychometric support for the validity and reliability of the Dutch 34-item ACP Engagement Survey. This instrument can be used to assess involvement in ACP in adults with and without chronic disease.
Project description:Background Arguably, Medical School curricula are deficient in learning opportunities related to the safe and effective use of medicines, in particular antimicrobials. Infection management is complex and multidisciplinary, and learning opportunities should reflect these principles. Aligned to the complexity of the subject matter, simulation and interprofessional based teaching are methods that can foster the collaborative skills required of future healthcare professionals. There have been calls to develop these methods in the teaching of safe prescribing and the management of infections; however, reports of such studies are limited. Methods We developed an interprofessional education (IPE) conference for second year undergraduate medical and pharmacy students based in the North East of England. We considered contact theory in the design of three small group interprofessional workshops, on the broad themes of antimicrobial stewardship, infection management and patient safety. A mixed methods approach assessed students’ attitudes towards IPE, barriers and facilitators of learning, and perceived learning gains. Qualitative data from workshop evaluation forms were analysed thematically, while quantitative data were analysed descriptively and differences between medical and pharmacy cohorts analysed using unpaired two-tailed t-tests. Results 226/352 students returned the workshop evaluation forms (66% of pharmacy students, 62% of medical students). 281/352 students responded to a series of Likert scale questions on the value of interprofessional education (88% of pharmacy students, 70% of medical students). Students reported acquisition of knowledge and skills, including concepts and procedures related to infection management and antimicrobial prescribing, and the development of problem-solving and critical evaluation skills. Students reflected on their attitude towards interprofessional collaboration. They reported a greater understanding of the roles of other healthcare professionals, reflected on the importance of effective communication in ensuring patient safety, and were more confident to work in interprofessional teams after the conference. Conclusions A robust IPE event, theoretically underpinned by contact theory and developed collaboratively, achieved interprofessional learning at scale and helped develop healthcare professionals willing to collaborate across disciplines. The resources, and evaluation insights based on the 3P (presage, process, and product) model of learning and teaching, will be of value to other educators who seek to develop theoretically-sound IPE interventions.
Project description:Pediatric advance care planning seeks to ensure end-of-life care conforming to the patients/their families' preferences. To expand our knowledge of advance care planning and "medical orders for life-sustaining treatment" (MOLST) in pediatric palliative home care, we determined the number of patients with MOLST, compared MOLST between the four "Together for Short Lives" (TfSL) groups and analyzed, whether there was a relationship between the content of the MOLST and the patients' places of death. The study was conducted as a single-center retrospective analysis of all patients of a large specialized pediatric palliative home care team (01/2013-09/2016). MOLST were available in 179/198 children (90.4%). Most parents decided fast on MOLST, 99 (55.3%) at initiation of pediatric palliative home care, 150 (83.4%) within the first 100 days. MOLST were only changed in 7.8%. Eighty/179 (44.7%) patients decided on a Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) order, 58 (32.4%) on treatment limitations of some kind and 41 (22.9%) wished for the entire spectrum of life-sustaining measures (Full Code). Most TfSL group 1 families wanted DNACPR and most TfSL group 3/4 parents Full Code. The majority (84.9%) of all DNACPR patients died at home/hospice. Conversely, all Full Code patients died in hospital (80% in an intensive care setting). The circumstances of the childrens' deaths can therefore be predicted considering the content of the MOLST. Regular advance care planning discussions are thus a very important aspect of pediatric palliative home care.
Project description:BackgroundAdvance care planning gives patients and their family members the possibility to consider and make decisions regarding future care and medical procedures.AimTo explore the view of people in the early stage of dementia on planning for future care.Research designThe study is a qualitative interview study with a semistructured interview guide. The data were analyzed according to the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven.Participants and research contextDementia nurses assisted in the recruiting of people with dementia for participation in the study. Study information was mailed to 95 people with early stage dementia. Ten people with dementia and eight caregiver spouses participated in the study.Ethical considerationsPeople with dementia belong to a vulnerable patient group, and care was taken in the areas of informed consent and accessible information.FindingsThe views of people with dementia are characterized by a complex storyline involving tensions and movement within the themes of wants, beliefs, and levels of insight. Participants wanted to think about the future but also wanted to live in the here and now.DiscussionHigh demands are placed on the advance care planning process for people with dementia and their family caregivers. A dignity-enhancing approach in dementia care emphasizes the dignity of and respect for this vulnerable and care-dependent patient group.ConclusionThe process of advance care planning in dementia care needs to go beyond person-centered care to a relationship-centered process. The illness trajectory and the impact on autonomy need to be taken into consideration.