Innovative advance care planning program arrives at Baptist Golden Triangle

Physicians, nurses and other clinical staff at Baptist Memorial Hospital - Golden Triangle now have another tool to help promote shared decision-making and better outcomes. Baptist Golden Triangle is the only hospital in Mississippi and in the Memphis, Tenn.-based Baptist Memorial Health Care System to use the web-based collection of Advance Care Planning Patient Education Videos.

The videos are designed to educate patients about advance care planning and end-of-life care treatment options and to help them make better informed decisions about the care they want, said Dr. Bryan Hilliard, the hospital’s health care ethics consultant. Hilliard is also a professor of philosophy at Mississippi University for Women.

“The videos are very patient/family centered and really do a good job of providing patients the information they need to make informed treatment decisions that are in accord with their wishes and values,” Hilliard said.

The hospital’s Bioethics Advisory Committee is taking the lead in introducing physicians, nurses and other clinical staff to the videos. Hilliard along with Steve Brown, director of pastoral care and vice chair of the hospital’s BAC, are educating clinicians in how to use the videos with patients and families.

The videos were developed by physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Some of the video topics include the goals of care, CPR, the goals of care in advanced disease, cancer and dementia goals of care, advanced dementia and feeding tubes. Clinicians also have access to a Facilitators Guide and a patient and family checklist to help them understand what advance care planning is, to clarify values and beliefs how to use the video library and document conversations.

“We know that patients have a legal and ethical right to information about their disease process and the benefits, burdens and alternatives to proposed treatments. The advance care planning videos are an adjuvant to, not a substitute for, a meaningful and productive patient-physician relationship,” Hilliard said. “When clinicians and patient communicate effectively, dignity is preserved, autonomy is respected and values are honored,” he added.