Advancing Advance Care Planning in the Primary Care Setting

Abstract

Despite providers agreeing that advance care planning counseling is within their scope of practice, many reported that they lack the time, education and resources needed to provide their patients with the counseling needed to make informed advance care planning decisions. In an effort to address the perceived time crunch described by many providers, we are seeking feedback on the accessibility and ease of utilization of the rapid assessment tool we created which should allow for PCP's to quickly identify patients who could benefit from advance care planning interventions. First, providers at all levels were surveyed about their personal implementation of an AD, they completed basic demographic information about their current practices, and then they assessed and provided feedback about the rapid assessment tool we created. A total of 21 providers participated over a l 0-week period. 12 reported having their own documented advanced directive, 87 .5% reported time was indicated as a major barrier to ACP discussions and 47.6% of participants indicated they would very likely use a rapid assessment tool (RAT) if one was available to prompt them to engage their patients in ACP. At the conclusion of this study, we are able to demonstrate that time continues to significant barrier to patient-provider engagement, modifications were made to the RAT and recommendations for future implementation studies for this tool were established based on the subjective feedback of the participants.