Advance Care Planning and Patient Preferences in a Feasibility Pilot Study to Improve End-of-Life Communication among Men with Metastatic Urological Malignancies

Introduction: Rates of advance care planning for patients with cancer are poor despite efforts to enhance discussions regarding goals of care. Good patient-physician communication is critical to providing quality end-of-life care and, thus, it is important to identify effective interventions to improve systems through which patient preferences are addressed.Methods: To improve rates of advance care planning as well as examine patient preferences regarding end-of-life care, we developed an integrated urology-palliative care clinic. All patients with a new diagnosis of a metastatic urological malignancy or castration resistant prostate cancer seen in a urology clinic within the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System were offered a palliative care referral to be performed immediately after their urology appointment. The primary outcome was completion of an advance directive or POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) form and the secondary outcome was patient preference ...