This is a resubmission by Kei Ouchi, MD, MPH, MS for the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (K76). Dr. Ouchi is committed to lead the field of emergency medicine to integrate the principles of geriatrics and palliative medicine. Dr. Ouchi is an emergency physician and home hospital physician (provides inpatient-level care at patient?s home10) in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women?s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ouchi?s research focuses on the development of ED GOAL, a 6-minute motivational interview conducted in the emergency department (ED), which engages patients to address advance care planning (ACP) conversations with their outpatient clinicians and avoids a time- consuming, sensitive conversation in the time-pressured ED environment. With funding from the NIA GEMSSTAR R03 and Emergency Medicine Foundation, Dr. Ouchi developed ED GOAL and demonstrated its acceptability and feasibility in seriously ill older adults in the ED. ED GOAL may also increase patients? self- reported ACP engagement and ACP documentation after leaving the ED. The GEMSSTAR project identified that, in this setting where resources are limited, ED GOAL requires refinements to maximize its potential efficacy. This study will refine ED GOAL to maximize its potential efficacy and scalability, and determine the preliminary efficacy of the refined ED GOAL to increase ACP engagement one month after leaving the ED. The proposed 5-year training plan accelerates Dr. Ouchi?s career development as an independent physician-scientist through training in: 1) cognitive impairment assessment and engagement of caregivers in ACP research (ED GOALCG); 2) adaptation of ED GOAL/ ED GOALCG by specially-trained nurses; 3) conducting a clinical trial of ED GOAL/ ED GOALCG administered by specially-trained nurses; and 4) implementation science in preparation for a future pragmatic clinical trial of ED GOAL/ ED GOALCG. James Tulsky, MD, an internationally recognized researcher and leader in palliative medicine will serve as the primary mentor. Dr. Ouchi is co-mentored by: 1) Mara Schonberg, MD, MPH, a leader in health services research among older adults; and 2) Edward Boyer, MD, PhD, a K24-funded emergency medicine researcher with expertise in behavioral interventions. The culmination of this career development award will ensure that Dr. Ouchi gains the advanced research skills and knowledge that he needs to conduct a large, pragmatic trial of ED GOAL. The ultimate goal is to establish ED GOAL as a national standard of care to help all seriously ill older adults to receive ACP conversations at the most critical times of their lives. Dr.
Ouchi aims to expand the scope of ED-based care from acute, disease- oriented care (e.g., gunshot wounds) to include patient-centered care (e.g., value-based, end-of-life care) for seriously ill older adults by integrating geriatrics and palliative medicine principles.
ED GOAL is a 6-minute motivational interview conducted in the emergency department (ED), which engages seriously ill, yet clinically stable, older adults to address advance care planning (ACP) with their outpatient clinician(s) and avoids a time-consuming, sensitive conversation in the time-pressured ED environment. My NIA GEMSSTAR R03 project established that ED GOAL may increase patients? engagement in ACP yet identified opportunities for refinement, including improving efficacy by involving caregivers of patients with cognitive impairment, adding care coordination components (hand-off document, etc.) to the outpatient clinicians, and broadening reach by adapting its use by specially-trained nurses. This study will allow me to refine ED GOAL to maximize its potential efficacy and scalability, and to determine the preliminary efficacy of ED GOAL on increasing ACP engagement (by self-report and in the electronic medical record) one month after leaving the ED in a pilot randomized controlled trial (N=120, 60 in each group).
