Goals-of-care discussions for patients hospitalised with serious illness

Speaker

Dr Alison Uyeda is a Clinical and Research Fellow in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. She collaborates with an interdisciplinary research team at the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence in Seattle. Her research interests include improving communication and goal-concordant care in the ICU, along with addressing disparities within serious illness care.

Abstract

There is a need to improve the quality and timeliness of goals-of-care discussions between clinicians, patients, and their surrogate decision-makers. This seminar will explore a retrospective cohort study conducted through the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence, which examined predictors of goals-of-care discussions documented in the electronic health record (EHR) for patients hospitalised with serious illness. EHR documented goals-of-care discussions were identified using natural language processing methods. These discussions were more likely to occur for older patients and those with higher acuity of illness, but less likely for racially or ethnically minoritized patients. This study identifies important disparities in goals-of-care discussions and supports ongoing research to address these disparities.

About the seminar series 

The Cicely Saunders Institute Open Seminar Series events are free to attend.

This seminar is worth CPD (1 credit) pending from the Royal College of Physicians.

The series aim is to optimise opportunities for local, national and international networking within palliative care and rehabilitation. We facilitate seminars to assist in improving practice, education and policy, and the integration of research and clinical endeavours.