A Hospital Pastoral Care Program to Improve Advance Care Planning Discussion in Patients with Heart Failure

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is a chronic disease associated with poor quality of life (QoL), high rates of readmission and high inpatient cost (Sadeghi et al., 2016). Advance care planning (ACP) improves quality of life, and reduces readmission and its associated cost (Schichtel et al., 2020). The uncertain trajectory of HF makes it difficult to find the ‘right time’ to initiate ACP communication, hindering patients, caregivers and health care providers to plan and prepare for the future care (Ahluwalia, S. C., & Enguidanos, S., 2015). Hospitalization experience makes HF patients and caregivers more receptive and desire to discuss end of life care. Therefor, hospitalization may provide a timely opportunity to initiate ACP discussion and palliative care before discharge (Schichte et al., 2020). The goal of this project is to assess the completion rates of ACP discussion and documentation among hospitalized HF patients and identify barriers to initiate ACP communication.