Rethinking advance care planning

Patient centeredness is an important indicator of health care quality. At the end of life, patient centeredness involves respecting patients’ wishes for end of life care. Advance care planning is a widely advocated strategy to discuss, document and meet patients’ preferences for end of life care. In this seminar, Dr Malhotra will share empirical evidence generated from studies with patients with heart failure and advanced cancer (Cost & Medical Care of Patients with Advanced Serious Illness in Singapore (COMPASS) Study) regarding what patients want at the end of life and the extent to which these preferences change over time. Dr Malhotra will discuss the implications of these findings and suggest that we need to rethink the purpose and implementation of advance care planning.

About the speaker

Dr Malhotra is an Assistant Professor at Lien Centre for Palliative Care and the Signature Program in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS. Dr Malhotra is a physician specializing in Community Medicine and Public Health. Her work focuses on conducting health services research in end of life care for patients with a special focus on understanding preferences for end of life care and its implications for advance care planning.

About the seminar series 

The Cicely Saunders Institute Open Seminar Series events are free to attend and there is no need to register.

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.