Published in:
01-01-2021 | Care | Original Research
A New Standard for Advance Care Planning (ACP) Conversations in the Hospital: Results from a Delphi Panel
Published in: Journal of General Internal Medicine | Issue 1/2021
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Background
Fewer than half of the US population has an advance healthcare directive. Hospitalizations offer a key opportunity for clinicians to engage patients in advance care planning (ACP) conversations. Guidelines suggest screening for the presence of “serious illness” but do not further specify how to prioritize the 12.4 million patients hospitalized each year.
Objective
To establish a normative standard for prioritizing hospitalized patients for ACP conversations.
Design and Setting
A modified Delphi study, with three iterative rounds of online surveys.
Participants
Multi-disciplinary group of US-based clinicians with research and practical expertise in ACP.
Main Measures
Indirect and direct elicitation of short-term and 1-year risk of mortality that prompt experts to prioritize ACP conversations for hospitalized adults.
Main results
Fifty-seven of 108 (52%) candidate panelists completed round 1, and 47 completed rounds 2 and 3. Panelists were primarily physicians (84%), with significant experience (mean years 23 [SD 9.8]), who either taught (55%) and/or performed research about ACP (55%). In round 1, > 70% of panelists agreed that all hospitalized adults ≥ 65 years should have an ACP conversation before discharge, but disagreed about the timing and content of the conversation. By round 3, > 70% of participants agreed that patients with either high (> 10%) short-term or high (≥ 34%) 1-year risk of mortality should have a goals of care conversation (i.e., focused on preferences for near-term treatment), while patients with low (≤ 10%) short-term and low (< 19%) 1-year risk of mortality warranted an ACP conversation (i.e., focused on preferences for future care) before discharge.
Limitations
Use of case vignettes to elicit clinician judgment; response rate.
Conclusions
Panelists agreed that clinicians should have an ACP conversation with all hospitalized adults over 65 years in an ACP conversation, adjusting the content and timing of the conversation conditional on the patient’s risk of short-term and 1-year mortality.