For the Houston Superintendent of the Texas health system, major challenges to getting advance care directives completed include time constraints for primary care physicians in handling planning. advance care plan for their patients.
PROBLEM
In addition, patients frequently have accidents during hospitalization without prior care instructions to guide care.
“We were looking for a solution that used technology that was both sensitive to patient needs and delivered,” said Dr. Julia Andrieni, senior vice president of population health and primary care at Houston Methodist. provide culturally sensitive patient education about respecting patient wishes and choices. and president and chief executive officer of Houston Methodist Care Coordination ACO and HMPAQ.
She continued: “With a limited number of employees, we also wanted to use a tool that was both efficient and effective. “Koda Health has a user-friendly tool that our nursing team can use and patients can use from the comfort of their homes with the time it takes to make thoughtful decisions. with their families.”
PROPOSE
Koda Health is an advanced care planning software platform provider. Initially, Houston Methodist intended to test the technology, as they had not seen any other technology that could delicately solve this problem.
We don’t know what we’ll learn, but we’re willing to try, as we don’t have a solution to enhance advance care planning for the growing Medicare population, Andrieni notes.
MEET CHALLENGES ONLY
To operate the new technology, the health system decided to use a team of palliative care nurses who already work with the Medicare advanced care population. Many of these patients have no advance care plan.
“Combining technology with nurses will optimize platform usage and achieve and advance strategic goals to enhance advance care planning in a growing population.”
Dr. Julia Andrieni, Methodist of Houston
“We have since extended the use of the platform to other nursing teams to address issues with their patients, extending this initial strategic effort,” Andrieni said. “These nurses work with patients to complete and answer their questions to develop a comprehensive, long-term care plan that respects each patient’s wishes.
She added: “We scan completed forms for EHRs to share with medical groups.
RESULT
Houston Methodist has increased the number of patients educated about advance care planning and the number of patients committed to completing and notarizing their advance care plans.
“In addition, when we looked at the data, we found a higher percentage of patients attending and completing ACP than with traditional approaches in a primary care physician’s office or hospital,” Andrieni reports. .
“Additionally, when using this type of technology for patient convenience at home with the assistance of a nursing professional, the percentage of men and people of color completing ACP is higher than the national average,” she said. note.
TIPS FOR OTHER PEOPLE
Andrieni advises other health systems to consider strategically using technology to increase patient education and patient engagement in completing advance care plans.
She concludes: “Giving patients time at home with their families to make tough choices is a suboptimal approach that cannot be achieved in the 10 or 20 minutes that people get during a primary care doctor visit. main”. “Additionally, combining technology with nurses will optimize platform usage and achieve and advance strategic goals to enhance advance care planning in a growing population.”
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