Advance Care Planning: How Can We Improve Access and Uptake?

Dr. Chino welcomes Dr. Yael Schenker to discuss a new clinical trial testing the best way of engaging patients with Advance Care Planning (ACP), the process of understanding personal values, life goals, and medical care preferences so that patient wishes are honored at end-of-life.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Hello, and welcome to Put Into Practice, the podcast for the JCO Oncology Practice. I am Dr. Fumiko Chino, an Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center with a research focus on access, affordability, and equity.

Care delivery goals for the critically ill, including those with cancer, have shifted towards a patient-centered framework. Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of understanding and sharing personal values, life goals, and medical care preferences so that patient wishes are honored at the end of life. Despite growing evidence of the benefits of these discussions, documentation of advance directives remains low, with some studies showing less than half of people with advanced cancer have a living will or health care power of attorney.

I am happy to welcome a guest today to discuss a new clinical trial evaluating the best way of engaging patients with advance care planning. Dr. Yael Schenker, MD, MAS, FAAHPM, is a Professor of Medicine with tenure and the Director of the Palliative Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. She is also a practicing Palliative Medicine Physician at UPMC. Her research focuses on improving quality of life in serious illness with a particular focus on palliative care delivery models. She is the first author of the JCO OP manuscript, "Facilitated Versus Patient-Directed Advance Care Planning Among Patients With Advanced Cancer: A Randomized Clinical Trial," which was published earlier this year.

Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode, and we have already agreed to go by our first names for the podcast.

Yael, it's wonderful to speak to you today.

Dr. Yael Schenker: Thank you so much for having me, Fumiko. I am such an admirer of you and your work. It's really an honor to be here.