Palliative Care Initiative : Advance Care Planning Quality Improvement Pilot

Download or read book Palliative Care Initiative : Advance Care Planning Quality Improvement Pilot written by Wilma Carrier and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Background : A long term care facility (LTCF) was instituting a creative care model with an emphasis on palliative care. A lack of advance care planning including completion of advance directives was an identified barrier for the new care model. Code status was considered an advance directive prior to the pilot. -- Method : A mixed method interventional design was used. The social service staff and chaplain were trained in Caring Conversations (Center for Practical Bioethics, n.d.) as a tool to address end of life care with LTCF residents. The number of completed advanced directives were assessed three months pre and post-training via retrospective chart review. The chaplain’s and social services staffs’ knowledge of advance care planning pre and post Caring Conversations educational sessions was assessed via informal surveys. -- Results : This project sought to determine if the initiation of advanced care planning conversations increased the number of completed advance directives for individuals in a LTCF setting after the chaplain and social service staff participated in the Caring Conversations educational intervention. Retrospective chart reviews were conducted on 125 residents, over 50% of whom were females over the age of 80 who had been living in the facility 3 or more years. There was a significant increase (30%, p