Improving the Electronic Capture of Advance Care Directives in a Healthcare Delivery System.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of a multifaceted quality improvement intervention in outpatient clinics at an integrated healthcare delivery system on capture rate of advance directives (ADs) in the electronic medical record (EMR).

DESIGN: Interrupted time series analysis with control groups between January 2010 and June 2015.

SETTING: Oncology, nephrology, and primary care outpatient clinics in an integrated healthcare delivery system.

PARTICIPANTS: All individuals aged 65 and older with at least one office visit in any outpatient clinic in the care delivery system (n = 77,350 with 502,446 office visits).

INTERVENTION: A series of quality improvement interventions to improve rates of advance care planning discussions and capture of those discussions in the EMR between 2010 and 2014.

MEASUREMENTS: Capture rate of ADs in the EMR.

RESULTS: Visits in the intervention primary care clinic were twice as likely to mention ADs in the EMR (53.4%) than visits in nonintervention primary care clinics (26.5%). Visits in the intervention oncology clinic were more than eight times as likely to mention ADs in the EMR (49.3% vs 6.0%), and visits in the intervention nephrology clinic were 2.5 times as likely to mention ADs (15.4% vs 6.0%) than visits in other specialty clinics.

CONCLUSIONS: A series of quality improvement interventions to increase discussions about advance care planning and capture of advance care directives in the EMR significantly increased the rate of capture in primary care and specialty care outpatient settings.