General Surgery Resuscitation Preference Documentation: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Documentation of resuscitation preferences is crucial for patients undergoing surgery. Unfortunately, this remains an area for improvement at many institutions. We conducted a quality improvement initiative to enhance documentation percentages by integrating perioperative resuscitation checks into the surgical workflow. Specifically, we aimed to increase the percentage of general surgery patients with documented resuscitation statuses from 82% to 90% within a 1-year period. METHODS: Three key change ideas were developed. First, surgical consent forms were modified to include the patient's resuscitation status. Second, the resuscitation status was added to the routinely used perioperative surgical checklist. Finally, patient resources on resuscitation processes and options were updated with support from patient partners. An audit survey was distributed mid-way through the interventions to evaluate process measures. RESULTS: The initiatives were successful in reaching our study aim of 90% documentation rate for all general surgery patients. The audit revealed a high uptake of the new consent forms, moderate use of the surgical checklist, and only a few patients for whom additional resuscitation details were added to their clinical note. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully increased the documentation percentage of resuscitation statuses within our large tertiary care center by incorporating checks into routine forms to prompt the conversation with patients early.

A prospective determination of the incidence of perceived inappropriate care in critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND: Health care providers' perceptions regarding appropriateness in end-of-life treatments have been widely studied. While nurses and physicians believe that rationing and other cost-related practices sometimes occur in the intensive care unit (ICU), they allege that treatment is often excessive. OBJECTIVE: To prospectively determine the incidence and causes of health care providers' perceptions regarding appropriateness of end-of-life treatments. METHODS: The present prospective study collected data from patients admitted to the medical-surgical trauma ICU of a 30-bed, Canadian teaching hospital over a three-month period. Daily surveys were completed independently by bedside nurses, charge nurses and attending physician. RESULTS: In total, 5224 of 6558 expected surveys (representing 294 patients) were analyzed, yielding a response rate of 79.7%. The incidence of perceived inappropriate care in the present study was 6.5% (19 of 294 patients), with ongoing treatment for >2 days after this determination occurring in 1% (three of 294 patients). However, at least one caregiver perceived inappropriate care at some point in 110 of 294 (37.5%) patients. In these cases, in which processes to address care were not already underway, respondents believed that important issues resulting in provision of inappropriate treatments included patient-family issues and communication before or in the ICU. Caregivers did not know their patients' wishes 22% (1129 of 5224) of the time. CONCLUSIONS: Although ongoing inappropriate care appeared to be a rare occurrence, the issue was a concern to at least one caregiver in one-third of cases. Public awareness for end-of-life issues, adequate communication, and up-to-date knowledge and practice in determining the wishes of critically ill patients are potential target areas to improve end-of-life care and reduce inappropriate care in the ICU. A daily, prospective survey of multidisciplinary caregivers, such as the survey used in the present study, is a viable and valuable means of determining the scope and causes of inappropriate care in the ICU.

The standard of care and conflicts at the end of life in critical care: lessons from medical-legal crossroads and the role of a quasi-judicial tribunal in decision-making.

PURPOSE: The goals of this qualitative study were to review the last 7 years of end of life legal decisions within the critical care field to explore how medical benefit is defined and by whom and the role of the standard of care (SoC) in conflict resolution. METHODS: A public online, non-profit database of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada was searched for relevant Consent and Capacity Board decisions from 2003 to 2012. In total, 1486 cases were collected, and purposive sampling identified a total of 29 decisions regarding use of life-sustaining treatments at end of life. Using modified grounded theory, decisions were read and analyzed from a central SoC concept to understand definitions of benefit, rationales for case adjudication, and repercussions of legal recourse in conflict resolution. RESULTS: Medical benefit was clearly defined, and its role in determining SoC, transparent. Perceptions of variability in SoC were enhanced by physicians in intractable conflicts seeking legal validation by framing SoC issues as "best interest" determinations. The results reveal some key problems in recourse to the Consent and Capacity Board for clinicians, patients and substitute decision makers in such conflict situations. CONCLUSIONS: This study can help improve decision-making by debunking myth of variability in determinations of medical benefit and the standards of care at end of life and reveal the pitfalls of legal recourse in resolving intractable conflicts.

Scarcity: the context of rationing in an Ontario ICU.

OBJECTIVES: Clinicians' perceptions of scarcity influence rationing of critical care resources, which may lead to serious adverse outcomes for patients who are denied access. We sought to better understand the phenomenon of scarcity in the critical care setting. DESIGN: Qualitative research methods. We used purposeful sampling to recruit ICU clinicians who were frequently involved in decisions to allocate ICU resources. Thematic analysis was performed to identify concepts related to the phenomenon of scarcity. SETTING: An ICU of a university-affiliated hospital in Toronto, Canada, between October and December 2007. SUBJECTS: We conducted 22 interviews with 12 ICU physicians, 4 ICU fellows, 2 ICU nursing team leaders, and 4 ICU resource nurses. MAIN RESULTS: The perception of scarcity arose from a complex interaction of factors within the institution including: 1) practices of non-ICU physicians (e.g., failure to specify end-of-life treatment plans or to secure an ICU bed prior to elective high-risk surgery), 2) family demands for life support and clinicians' perception of a lack of legal support if they opposed these, and 3) inability to transfer patients to non-ICU care settings in a timely manner. Implications of scarcity included: 1) diversions of critically ill patients, 2) premature patient transfers, 3) temporary delivery of critical care in non-ICU locations (e.g., emergency department, postanesthesia care unit), and 4) interprofessional conflicts. CONCLUSIONS: ICU clinicians' perceptions of scarcity may lead to rationing of critical care resources. We found that nonmedical factors strongly influenced prioritization activity, both for admission and discharge. Although scarcity of ICU beds might be mitigated by process improvements such as patient flow or proactive communication, our findings highlight the importance of a fair process for inevitable limit setting at the bedside.

Best interests at end of life: an updated review of decisions made by the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario.

PURPOSE: To increase our understanding of the notion of "best interests" in end of life disagreements through an updated review of decisions made by the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario. There was a significant increase (235%) in decisions from this tribunal between 2009 and 2011. "Best interests" test is used when no prior expressed wishes are known to the surrogate decision-makers. METHODS: Purposively sampled written decisions of the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario between 2003 and 2011 that focused on the "best interests" of patients at the end of life. Interpretive content analysis was performed independently by 3 reviewers, and themes were identified by consensus. RESULTS: We found substitute decision makers (SDMs) rely on an appeal to their own values or religion in their interpretation of best interests; physicians rely on clinical conditions; board emphasizes alignment with Health Care Consent Act. In the more recent cases, we found that SDMs report that patients value suffering; that SDMs have unrealistic hope for recovery and can communicate and get direction from the incapable patient; that SDMs need education on their role and responsibility as SDM; and that SDMs need time to provide consent, and that most proposed treatment plans that were sources of conflict included "palliative care." INTERPRETATION: Several lessons are drawn for the benefit of health care teams engaged in disagreements at end of life with SDMs over the best interests of patients.

Managing access and flow through appropriate discharge: preventing common errors and improving processes.

Increased pressure on acute care hospitals to move patients seamlessly through the healthcare system has resulted in more attention to the process of discharging patients, particularly seniors, from hospitals. When alignment with the Health Care Consent Act is lacking, errors can occur in the process. Examples of mistakes by healthcare professionals include these: taking direction from the wrong substitute decision-maker (SDM); taking direction from a family member when the patient is capable; allowing an SDM to make an advance directive on behalf of a patient; being aware of a known prior expressed wish but ignoring that wish when considering a placement plan; waiting for an SDM who is not available, willing and capable instead of proceeding down the hierarchy of decision-makers; or permitting families to propose discharge plans. Such errors have the potential to compromise quality of care, but they also work to prevent timely and appropriate discharge. In order to minimize these common errors in the consent process for placements, we have proposed a checklist to help meet ethical and legal obligations in the discharge process. We suggest the checklist may minimize avoidable conflict and misunderstanding and promote a seamless discharge process.

Ethical considerations for classifying patients as 'palliative' when calculating Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios.

The Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) is a commonly used measure of hospital mortality that is standardised for age, comorbidities and other factors. By tradition, this statistic has always excluded patients classified as 'palliative'. The HSMR has never been validated as a reliable measure of quality of care, and it can be very hard to interpret, partly due to difficulties with defining and applying the term 'palliative'. In this paper, we review the Canadian experience with the palliative status flag, and explain why it is so difficult to define and apply consistently. We also highlight some potential concerns about clinicians labelling inpatients as 'palliative' during their admission. Finally, we propose an organisational ethics framework, and six specific suggestions for hospitals to use when publishing statistics such as the HSMR.