Project description:BackgroundThe aim of this study was to describe barriers and facilitators for shared decision making (SDM) as experienced by older patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs), informal caregivers and health professionals.MethodsA structured literature search was conducted with 5 databases. Two reviewers independently assessed studies for eligibility and performed a quality assessment. The results from the included studies were summarized using a predefined taxonomy.ResultsOur search yielded 3838 articles. Twenty-eight studies, listing 149 perceived barriers and 67 perceived facilitators for SDM, were included. Due to poor health and cognitive and/or physical impairments, older patients with MCCs participate less in SDM. Poor interpersonal skills of health professionals are perceived as hampering SDM, as do organizational barriers, such as pressure for time and high turnover of patients. However, among older patients with MCCs, SDM could be facilitated when patients share information about personal values, priorities and preferences, as well as information about quality of life and functional status. Informal caregivers may facilitate SDM by assisting patients with decision support, although informal caregivers can also complicate the SDM process, for example, when they have different views on treatment or the patient's capability to be involved. Coordination of care when multiple health professionals are involved is perceived as important.ConclusionsAlthough poor health is perceived as a barrier to participate in SDM, the personal experience of living with MCCs is considered valuable input in SDM. An explicit invitation to participate in SDM is important to older adults. Health professionals need a supporting organizational context and good communication skills to devise an individualized approach for patient care.
Project description:ObjectivesWhile patients' health priorities should inform healthcare, strategies for doing so are lacking for patients with multiple conditions. We describe challenges to, and strategies that support, patients' priorities-aligned decision-making.DesignParticipant observation qualitative study.SettingPrimary care and cardiology practices in Connecticut.ParticipantsTen primary care clinicians, five cardiologists, and the Patient Priorities implementation team (four geriatricians, physician expert in clinician training, behavioral medicine expert). The patients discussed were ≥ 66 years with >3 chronic conditions and ≥10 medications or saw ≥ two specialists.ExposureFollowing initial training and experience in providing Patient Priorities Care, the clinicians and Patient Priorities implementation team participated in 21 case-based, group discussions (10 face-to-face;11 telephonic). Using emergent learning (i.e. learning which arises from interactions among the participants), participants discussed challenges, posed solutions, and worked together to determine how to align care options with the health priorities of 35 patients participating in the Patient Priorities Care pilot.Main outcomesChallenges to, and strategies for, aligning decision-making with patient's health priorities.ResultsCategories of challenges discussed among participants included uncertainty, complexity, and multiplicity of problems and treatments; difficulty switching to patients' priorities as the focus of decision-making; and differing perspectives between patients and clinicians, and among clinicians. Strategies identified to support patient priorities-aligned decision-making included starting with one thing that matters most to each patient; conducting serial trials of starting, stopping, or continuing interventions; focusing on function (i.e. achieving patient's desired activities) rather than eliminating symptoms; basing communications, decision-making, and effectiveness on patients' priorities not solely on diseases; and negotiating shared decisions when there are differences in perspectives.ConclusionsThe discrete set of challenges encountered and the implementable strategies identified suggest that patient priorities-aligned decision-making in the care of patients with multiple chronic conditions is feasible, albeit complicated. Findings require replication in additional settings and determination of their effect on patient outcomes.
Project description:To evaluate the effects of a shared decision making (SDM) intervention for older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs). A pragmatic trial evaluated the effects of the SDMMCC intervention, existing of SDM training for nine geriatricians in two hospitals and a preparatory tool for patients. A prospective pre-intervention post-intervention multi-center clinical study was conducted in which an usual care group of older patients with MCC and their informal caregivers was included before the implementation of the intervention and a new cohort of patients and informal caregivers after the implementation of the intervention. SDM was observed using the OPTIONMCC during video-recorded consultations. Patient- and caregivers reported outcomes regarding their role in SDM, involvement, perceived SDM and decisional conflict were measured. The differences between groups regarding the level of observed SDM (OPTIONMCC) were analyzed with a mixed model analysis. Dichotomous patient-reported outcomes were analyzed with a logistic mixed model. From two outpatient geriatric clinics 216 patients with MCCs participated. The mean age was 77.3 years, and 56.3% of patients were female. No significant difference was found in the overall level of SDM as measured with the OPTIONMCC or in patient-reported outcomes. However, at item level the items discussing 'goals', 'options', and 'decision making' significantly improved after the intervention. The items discussing 'partnership' and 'evaluating the decision-making process' showed a significant decrease. Fifty-two percent of the patients completed the preparatory tool, but the results were only discussed in 12% of the consultations. This study provides scope for improvement of SDM in geriatrics. Engaging older adults with MCCs and informal caregivers in the decision making process should be an essential part of SDM training for geriatricians, beyond the SDM steps of explaining options, benefits and harms. More attention should be paid to the integration of preparatory work in the consultation.
Project description:IntroductionOver half of patients over age 65 in the US have multimorbidity, defined as having three or more chronic diseases, but most clinical research on chronic disease management focuses on single chronic diseases. An expert panel convened by the American Geriatrics Society has provided a framework of guiding principles for clinical decision-making in patients with multimorbidity. This resource describes a session for second-year medical students at the end of their preclinical curriculum, in which students practice using a framework for clinical decision-making for patients with multiple chronic diseases.MethodsIn this 90-minute small-group session, students work with faculty mentors to apply that framework to a hypothetical patient with multimorbidity. They consider patient preferences, review relevant evidence, estimate a prognosis, consider clinical feasibility, and devise a treatment plan that maximizes benefits, minimizes harm, and enhances quality of life.ResultsApproximately 180 students have completed the multimorbidity session. Outcomes data suggest that the session helps students master key concepts in management of the patient with multimorbidity.DiscussionPrior to entering the clinical arena, medical students need to develop foundational skills that have not historically been part of preclinical curricula, such as accurately estimating prognoses, eliciting goals of care, and understanding the limitations of evidence regarding treatment outcomes in older patients. This session, one in a series of case-based exercises designed to train preclinical medical students in core competencies for care of the older patient, is a useful tool for medical educators looking to enrich the geriatric content in preclinical curricula.
Project description:Health care may be burdensome and of uncertain benefit for older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs). Aligning health care with an individual's health priorities may improve outcomes and reduce burden. To evaluate whether patient priorities care (PPC) is associated with a perception of more goal-directed and less burdensome care compared with usual care (UC). Nonrandomized clinical trial with propensity adjustment conducted at 1 PPC and 1 UC site of a Connecticut multisite primary care practice that provides care to almost 15% of the state's residents. Participants included 163 adults aged 65 years or older who had 3 or more chronic conditions cared for by 10 primary care practitioners (PCPs) trained in PPC and 203 similar patients who received UC from 7 PCPs not trained in PPC. Participant enrollment occurred between February 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018; follow-up extended for up to 9 months (ended September 30, 2018). Patient priorities care, an approach to decision-making that includes patients' identifying their health priorities (ie, specific health outcome goals and health care preferences) and clinicians aligning their decision-making to achieve these health priorities. Primary outcomes included change in patients' Older Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (O-PACIC), CollaboRATE, and Treatment Burden Questionnaire (TBQ) scores; electronic health record documentation of decision-making based on patients' health priorities; medications and self-management tasks added or stopped; and diagnostic tests, referrals, and procedures ordered or avoided. Of the 366 patients, 235 (64.2%) were female and 350 (95.6%) were white. Compared with the UC group, the PPC group was older (mean [SD] age, 74.7 [6.6] vs 77.6 [7.6] years) and had lower physical and mental health scores. At follow-up, PPC participants reported a 5-point greater decrease in TBQ score than those who received UC (ß [SE], -5.0 [2.04]; P = .01) using a weighted regression model with inverse probability of PCP assignment weights; no differences were seen in O-PACIC or CollaboRATE scores. Health priorities-based decisions were mentioned in clinical visit notes for 108 of 163 (66.3%) PPC vs 0 of 203 (0%) UC participants. Compared with UC patients, PPC patients were more likely to have medications stopped (weighted comparison, 52.0% vs 33.8%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 2.05; 95% CI, 1.43-2.95) and less likely to have self-management tasks (57.5% vs 62.1%; AOR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.41-0.84) and diagnostic tests (80.8% vs 86.4%; AOR, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.12-0.40) ordered. This study's findings suggest that patient priorities care may be associated with reduced treatment burden and unwanted health care. Care aligned with patients' priorities may be feasible and effective for older adults with MCCs. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03600389.
Project description:Multimorbidity, defined as the presence of 2 or more chronic conditions, is common among older adults with cardiovascular disease. These individuals are at increased risk for poor health outcomes and account for a large proportion of health care utilization. Clinicians are challenged with the heterogeneity of this population, the complexity of the treatment regimen, limited high-quality evidence, and fragmented health care systems. Each treatment recommended by a clinical practice guideline for a single cardiovascular disease might be rational, but the combination of all evidence-based recommendations can be impractical or even harmful to individuals with multimorbidity. These challenges can be overcome with a patient-centred approach that incorporates the individual's preferences, relevant evidence, the overall and condition-specific prognosis, clinical feasibility of treatments, and interactions with other treatments and coexisting chronic conditions. The ultimate goal is to maximize benefits and minimize harms by optimizing adherence to the most essential treatments, while acknowledging trade-offs between treatments for different health conditions. It might be necessary to discontinue therapies that are not essential or potentially harmful to decrease the risk of drug-drug and drug-disease interactions from polypharmacy. A decision to initiate, withhold, or stop a treatment should be on the basis of the time horizon to benefits vs the individual's prognosis. In this review, we illustrate how cardiologists and general practitioners can adopt a patient-centred approach to focus on the aspects of cardiovascular and noncardiovascular health that have the greatest effect on functioning and quality of life in older adults with cardiovascular disease and multimorbidity.
Project description:Older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) receive care that is fragmented and burdensome, lacks evidence, and most importantly is not focused on what matters most to them. An implementation feasibility study of Patient Priorities Care (PPC), a new approach to care that is based on health outcome goals and healthcare preferences, was conducted. This study took place at 1 primary care and 1 cardiology practice in Connecticut and involved 9 primary care providers (PCPs), 5 cardiologists, and 119 older adults with MCCs. PPC was implemented using methods based on a practice change framework and continuous plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles. Core elements included leadership support, clinical champions, priorities facilitators, training, electronic health record (EHR) support, workflow development and continuous modification, and collaborative learning. PPC processes for clinic workflow and decision-making were developed, and clinicians were trained. After 10 months, 119 older adults enrolled and had priorities identified; 92 (77%) returned to their PCP after priorities identification. In 56 (46%) of these visits, clinicians documented patient priorities discussions. Workflow challenges identified and solved included patient enrollment lags, EHR documentation of priorities discussions, and interprofessional communication. Time for clinicians to provide PPC remains a challenge, as does decision-making, including clinicians' perceptions that they are already doing so; clinicians' concerns about guidelines, metrics, and unrealistic priorities; and differences between PCPs and patients and between PCPs and cardiologists about treatment decisions. PDSA cycles and continuing collaborative learning with national experts and peers are taking place to address workflow and clinical decision-making challenges. Translating disease-based to priorities-aligned decision-making appears challenging but feasible to implement in a clinical setting.
Project description:ObjectiveTo provide high-quality healthcare, it is essential to understand values that guide the healthcare decisions of older adults. We investigated the types of values that culturally diverse older adults incorporate in medical decision making.MethodsFocus groups were held with older adults who varied in cognitive status (mildly impaired versus those with normal cognition) and ethnicity (Hispanic and non-Hispanic). Investigators used a qualitative descriptive approach to analyze transcripts and identify themes.ResultsForty-nine individuals (49% with cognitive impairment; 51% Hispanic) participated. Participants expressed a wide range of values relating to individual factors, familial/cultural beliefs and expectations, balancing risks and benefits, receiving decisional support, and considering values other than their own. Participants emphasized that values are individual-specific, influenced by aging, and change throughout life course. Participants described barriers and facilitators that interfere with or promote value solicitation and incorporation during medical encounters.ConclusionStudy findings highlight that in older adults with various health experiences, cognitive and physical health status, and sociocultural backgrounds, medical decisions are influenced by a variety of values.Practical implicationsClinicians should take time to elicit, understand, and reassess the different types of values of older adults.
Project description:The selection and assessment process of appropriate robots became a more complex and complicated task due to various available alternatives and conflicting attributes which must take into consideration. Also, uncertainty which exists usually in the selection process is an unavoidable component that needs to be thoughtfully measured and traditional multi-attribute decision-making approaches failed to deal precisely with it. Since almost all decisions originate from subjective ordinal preferences, handling uncertainty using linguistic variables is also not enough. Thus, the objective of the current study is to present a new extended ordinal priority approach in the neutrosophic environment for the first time to select an appropriate robot. Since neutrosophic is one of the most effective and accommodating tools for handling uncertainty, thus, this method goes to transform linguistic information into triangular neutrosophic numbers using a new presented scale. This scale was used to determine the importance degree of attributes and alternatives regarding experts' opinions. Also, the score function of the triangular neutrosophic number is used for prioritizing attributes and alternatives. The experts in our proposed method have the same degree of importance, since each expert is a person with special skills and knowledge representing mastery of a particular subject. To measure the applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach, an experimental case study has been established for the robot selection problem of a new pharmaceutical city in Egypt for the first time. The source of data in this case study is experts, interviews, and questionnaires. Also, sensitivity and comparative analysis are further made for verifying the power of the proposed approach. The outcome of this study shows that the suggested approach for robot selection is quite helpful and has a great performance under uncertainty over classical and fuzzy ordinal priority approaches. Also, the suggested approach is less consumption of time and simpler than the fuzzy ordinal priority approach. Therefore, we recommend firms and governments to apply it for increasing product quality, hence the profitability of manufacturing industries and decrease needless costs.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40747-022-00721-w.
Project description:Objectives/hypothesisTo explore possible factors that might impact a patient's choice to pursue endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) or continue with medical management for treatment of refractory chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS).Study designCross-sectional evaluation of a multicenter prospective cohort.MethodsTwo hundred forty-two subjects with CRS were prospectively enrolled within four academic tertiary care centers across North America with ongoing symptoms despite prior medical treatment. Subjects either self-selected continued medical management (n = 62) or ESS (n = 180) for treatment of sinonasal symptoms. Differences in demographics, comorbid conditions, and clinical measures of disease severity between subject groups were compared. Validated metrics of social support, personality, risk aversion, and physician-patient relationships were compared using bivariate analyses, predicted probabilities, and receiver operating characteristic curves at the 0.05 alpha level.ResultsNo significant differences were found between treatment groups for any demographic characteristic, clinical cofactor, or measure of social support, personality, or the physician-patient relationship. Subjects electing to pursue sinus surgery did report significantly worse average quality-of-life (QOL) scores on the 22-item Sinonasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22; P < .001) compared to those electing continued medical therapy (54.6 ± 18.9 vs. 39.4 ± 17.7), regardless of surgical history or polyp status. SNOT-22 score significantly predicted treatment selection (odds ratio, 1.046; 95% confidence interval, 1.028-1.065; P < .001) and was found to accurately discriminate between subjects choosing endoscopic sinus surgery and those electing medical management 72% of the time.ConclusionsWorse patient-reported disease severity, as measured by the SNOT-22, was significantly associated with the treatment choice for CRS. Strong consideration should be given for incorporating CRS-specific QOL measures into routine clinical practice.Level of evidence2b.