Intervention to Improve Care at Life’s End in Inpatient Settings: The BEACON Trial

Background

Widespread implementation of palliative care treatment plans could reduce suffering in the last days of life by adopting best practices of traditionally home-based hospice care in inpatient settings.

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness of a multi-modal intervention strategy to improve processes of end-of-life care in inpatient settings.

Design

Implementation trial with an intervention staggered across hospitals using a multiple-baseline, stepped wedge design.

Participants

Six Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs).

Intervention

Staff training was targeted to all hospital providers and focused on identifying actively dying patients and implementing best practices from home-based hospice care, supported with an electronic order set and paper-based educational tools.

Main Measures

Several processes of care were identified as quality endpoints for end-of-life care (last 7 days) and abstracted from electronic medical records of veterans who died before or after intervention (n = 6,066). Primary endpoints were proportion with an order for opioid pain medication at time of death, do-not-resuscitate order, location of death, nasogastric tube, intravenous line infusing, and physical restraints. Secondary endpoints were administration of opioids, order/administration of antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and scopolamine (for death rattle); sublingual administration; advance directives; palliative care consultations; and pastoral care services. Generalized estimating equations were conducted adjusting for longitudinal trends.

Key Results

Significant intervention effects were observed for orders for opioid pain medication (OR: 1.39), antipsychotic medications (OR: 1.98), benzodiazepines (OR: 1.39), death rattle medications (OR: 2.77), sublingual administration (OR: 4.12), nasogastric tubes (OR: 0.71), and advance directives (OR: 1.47). Intervention effects were not significant for location of death, do-not-resuscitate orders, intravenous lines, or restraints.

Conclusions

This broadly targeted intervention strategy led to modest but statistically significant changes in several processes of care, indicating its potential for widespread dissemination to improve end-of-life care for thousands of patients who die each year in inpatient settings.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11606-013-2724-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.KEY WORDS: palliative care, end-of-life care, palliative medicine, hospice, inpatient     

Marijuana's Effects on Brain Structure and Function: What Do We Know and What Should We Do? A Brief Review and Commentary

The recent US Food and Drug Administration approval of the marijuana constituent cannabidiol as safe and effective for treatment of 2 rare forms of epilepsy has raised hopes that others of the 500 chemicals in marijuana will be found to be therapeutic. However, the long-term consequences of street marijuana use are unclear, and recent studies raise red flags about its effects. Changes in brain maturation and intellectual function, including decreases in intelligence quotient, have been noted in chronic users and appear permanent in early users in most but not all studies. These studies suggest that at a minimum, regular marijuana use should be discouraged in individuals under the age of 21.     

Cardiac Imaging in the Geriatric Population: What Do We Think We Know,and What Do We Need to Learn?

Cardiac imaging plays an important role in coronary artery disease (CAD), congestive heart failure (HF) and valvular heart disease (VHD) in the elderly. Imaging defines the structure and function of the cardiac system, refining the understanding of patients' anatomy and physiology and informing a host of clinical care decisions, including prognosis. Yet there is a paucity of evidence to guide the rational use of many imaging modalities in patients of advanced age, a population with considerable clinical heterogeneity, high prevalence and burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and atypical presentations of CVD. This paper discusses important considerations for cardiac imaging for older adults, particularly in regard to CAD, VHD and HF, and then presents domains for future research to produce data that would inform clinical care guidelines, appropriate use criteria and imaging lab protocols to address the unique needs of the fast-growing elderly population.     

Completing an Advance Directive in the Primary Care Setting: What Do We Need for Success?

OBJECTIVES: To systematically review studies designed to increase advance directive completion in the primary care setting and employ meta-analytic techniques to quantify their effects. DESIGN: Extensive bibliographic searches of English-language literature published from January 1991 through July 2005 were conducted. Investigators abstracted prespecified information (e.g., design, study duration, types of interventions employed) and advance directive completion rates for intervention and control arms in each investigation and calculated absolute rate differences (i.e., difference in completion rates between the two groups) for each study. Individual study and pooled-effect sizes were also calculated, along with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). SETTING: Literature review. RESULTS: Eighteen studies were retained in the final sample. Most studies employed multimodal interventions. The most common approach consisted of educational materials directed at patients (through mailing or at visit) coupled with a patient-healthcare provider interaction in a group or individual setting (n=7). Absolute differences in completion rates varied from a high of 44% (favors intervention) to a low of -2% (favors control). Effect sizes could be calculated for 15 of the 18 studies. The pooled effect size was 0.50 (95% CI=0.17-0.83), indicating a moderate overall effect in favor of the intervention. CONCLUSION: The majority of studies demonstrated statistically significant effects associated with the advance directive intervention. The most successful interventions incorporated direct patient-healthcare professional interactions over multiple visits. Passive education of patients using written materials (without direct counseling) was a relatively ineffective method for increasing advance directive completion rates in the primary care setting.     

Surrogate Alcohol: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go?

BACKGROUND: Consumption of surrogate alcohols (i.e., nonbeverage alcohols and illegally produced alcohols) was shown to impact on different causes of death, not only poisoning or liver disease, and appears to be a major public health problem in Russia and elsewhere. METHODS: A computer-assisted literature review on chemical composition and health consequences of "surrogate alcohol" was conducted and more than 70 references were identified. A wider definition of the term "surrogate alcohol" was derived, including both nonbeverage alcohols and illegally produced alcohols that contain nonbeverage alcohols. RESULTS: Surrogate alcohol may contain substances that cause severe health consequences including death. Known toxic constituents include lead, which may lead to chronic toxicity, and methanol, which leads to acute poisoning. On the other hand, the role of higher alcohols (e.g., propanol, isobutanol, and isoamyl alcohol) in the etiology of surrogate-associated diseases is currently unclear. Whether other constituents of surrogates have contributed to the high all-cause mortality over and above the effect of ethanol in recent studies also remains unclear. CONCLUSIONS: Given the high public health importance associated with the consumption of surrogate alcohols, further knowledge on its chemical composition is required as well as research on its links to various disease endpoints should be undertaken with priority. Some interventions to reduce the harm resulting from surrogate alcohol could be undertaken already at this point. For example, the use of methanol or methanol-containing wood alcohol should be abolished in denatured alcohol. Other possible surrogates (e.g., automobile products) should be treated with bittering agents to avoid consumption.     

BP Targets in Hypertension: What Should We Do Now That SPRINT Is Out?

Systolic blood pressure (SBP) is an important predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes. Lowering SBP has been shown to reduce CVD morbidity and mortality, but the optimal SBP target continues to be a topic of intense debate. The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) reported a significantly lower risk for CVD outcomes and all-cause mortality by targeting SBP <120 mmHg compared with <140 mmHg in a population of hypertensive persons at high CV risk. In this review, we discuss the strengths, limitations, and generalizability of SPRINT findings to other hypertensive populations that were excluded from the trial, including those with diabetes or prior stroke, <50 years old, and at lower CVD risk. We will focus on the implications of SPRINT findings for appropriate BP targets in high-risk groups of hypertensive persons, including the elderly and those with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We will also address the cost-effectiveness of intensive BP treatment as implemented in SPRINT and the implications of SPRINT for health care policy and future BP guidelines.