NCT05209880

Advance Care Planning in the Emergency Department

An Advance Care Planning Intervention in the Emergency Department: a Randomized Controlled Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 141 (actual)
• Sponsor: Brigham and Women's Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This is a two-armed, parallel-design, pre-/post-intervention assessment study. The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial for ED GOAL on a cohort of 120 older adults with serious illness to collect patient-centered outcomes and determine preliminary efficacy on increasing advance care planning engagement (self-reported and/or in the electronic medical record) one month after leaving the emergency department. The investigators will also conduct qualitative interviews with participants of ED GOAL.

Detailed description

ED GOAL, a 6-minute motivational interview conducted in the emergency department (ED), which engages participants to address advance care planning (ACP) conversations with their outpatient clinicians and avoids a time-consuming, sensitive conversation in the time-pressured ED environment. This study is designed to determine the preliminary efficacy of ED GOAL on increasing ACP engagement (by self-report and in the electronic medical record) one month after leaving the ED.

Conditions

• Congestive Heart Failure
• Metastatic Cancer
• Chronic Kidney Disease Requiring Chronic Dialysis
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	ED GOAL	The emergency department clinician-led, behavioral intervention (ED GOAL) is designed to engage seriously ill yet clinically stable older adults in the emergency department to address their values and preferences towards end-of-life care with their outpatient clinicians. The intervention consists of an interview to discuss participants' values and preferences for end-of-life care. The participants will receive coaching on how to initiate/re-introduce discussions about end-of-life wishes with their loved ones and outpatient clinicians. The participants' outpatient clinicians will also receive a summary of what participants disclosed via email or mailed letter.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-03-01
• Primary completion: 2023-12-31
• Completion: 2024-07-01
• First posted: 2022-01-27
• Last updated: 2026-03-13
• Results posted: 2025-05-06

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States