Quality Measurement of Serious Illness Communication: Recommendations for Health Systems Based on Findings from a Symposium of National Experts.

Communication between clinicians and patients fundamentally shapes the experience of serious illness. There is increasing recognition that health systems should routinely implement structures and processes to assure high-quality serious illness communication (SIC) and measure the effectiveness of their efforts on key outcomes. The absence, underdevelopment, or limited applicability of quality measures related specifically to SIC, and their limited application only to those seen by specialist palliative and hospice care teams, hinder efforts to improve care planning, service delivery, and health outcomes for all seriously ill patients.

Advance Care Planning Documentation in Electronic Health Records: Current Challenges and Recommendations for Change.

Objective: To develop a set of clinically relevant recommendations to improve the state of advance care planning (ACP) documentation in the electronic health record (EHR).

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) is a key process that supports goal-concordant care. For preferences to be honored, clinicians must be able to reliably record, find, and use ACP documentation.

Determining Palliative Care Penetration Rates in the Acute Care Setting.

Context: Intermountain Healthcare, in collaboration with Cerner Corporation, developed a hospital-based electronic palliative care algorithm.

Objectives: This study aims to improve identification of patients who would benefit from palliative care services, and calculate palliative care penetration rates.

Methods: This study used a mixed-methods nonrandomized retrospective study design.