Introduction: Advance care planning (ACP) is a patient-centered process with clear benefits for patients. Despite the widespread recognition of ACP as an integral part of quality cancer care,compliance with ACP provision remains suboptimal especially in malignant hematology. Many barriers to end-of-life discussions among hematologists have been identified in the literature. This study aims to describe a baseline rate of ACP with hematology outpatients at the end-of-life and the local barriers to ACP, which could inform future quality improvement (QI) initiatives in this area.
Setting/participants: Malignant hematologists (n = 10), hematology fellows (n=2), and hematology clinic nurses (n=4) of the Juravinski Cancer Centre (JCC) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada participated in this study.
Methods: A retrospective chart audit was undertaken to establish the baseline rate of ACP for the target population at our centre. Subsequently, key stakeholder interviews were held with our local multiple myeloma (MM) specialists to document barriers to ACP from their perspectives. The emerging themes were synthesized using a Fishbone diagram and validated by the JCC hematology clinic staff through multivoting.
Results: The baseline rate of ACP with hematology outpatients at the end-of-life at our centre is 40%. The are three main local barriers to ACP with the target population: 1) lack of patient initiative; 2) time/scheduling constraints; and 3) competing priorities.
Discussion: Patients who participate in ACP are much more likely to have their end-of-life wishes followed than those who do not. Malignant hematology patients are at the greatest risk of not having ACP discussions with their clinicians due to several patient, provider, and system barriers. Patient- and system-level barriers have been identified as the most prevalent at the JCC, necessitating a tailored QI initiative to achieve the standard of care.
Hillis:Roche: Honoraria.
