End of life planning is an essential component of complete care for patients established in a primary care clinic. Family medicine clinics, where treatment begins with birth and ends with death, it is imperative for clinicians both seasoned and new have the knowledge and resources available to ensure effective discussion of this complex subject. Surveys across the country of both patients and providers show that anywhere between 5-25% of patients have an advanced directive filled out and on file. Furthermore, most patients report a preference for holding this discussion with their established primary care physician. Numerous barriers have been identified in previous surveys and studies that tend to limit this discussion in the primary care setting in the academic and private sector. By identifying these barriers and providing possible solutions, primary care providers should be able to more effectively facilitate and navigate a discussion about end of life care. We designed a quality improvement project for family medicine residents in an effort to identify location specific barriers and to provide an educational didactic session which is aimed at overcoming these barriers. A survey was designed to be filled out by participates prior to the presentation to measure baseline comfort and understanding of advanced directives. The same survey was administered after the presentation to measure the effectiveness of the presented didactic. Statistical analysis of these two surveys will be completed and reviewed. The expected outcome is that participants in the session leave with an improved comfort with the subject of advanced directives and end of life planning. Participants are expected to have increased knowledge of available resources that can be utilized during these discussions. By providing this session to both residents and supervising physicians, the hope is that an increase in documented advanced care directives will be seen at the family medicine clinic. If this session is found to be an effective tool to address the identified barriers to end of life planning, it may be suitable to extend throughout the family medicine department at East Tennessee State University. Following this didactic session, multiple residents reported utilizing resources that were presented during discussions, with patients in regards to end of life planning and advanced care directives.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:asrf-1075 |
| Date | 05 April 2018 |
| Creators | Bridges, Christopher, MD |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Appalachian Student Research Forum |
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