aginghearts Emergency Medicine, palliative care, Patient Priorities Care, Research, Shared Decision Making

Palliative Care in the Emergency Department

Ask any older adult about their preferences foUNC Headshotr end-of-life care, and the majority of them will tell you that they would prefer to die at home rather than in a hospital. Unfortunately, this desire is often not fulfilled.

The population in the United States is aging; by 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be over age 65. This shift in demographics has already had a significant impact on healthcare utilization, particularly in regard to emergency medical services. Not only do older adults visit the emergency department (ED) at higher rates than younger patients, but they are also more likely to be admitted and experience longer stays.

These trends are especially prominent near the end of life, with half of older adults visiting the ED within the last month of life. For those older patients who are discharged home from the ED, repeat visits are common. This often results in a vicious cycle in which older patients are repeatedly discharged home from the ED, only to return within a few months, often for the same diagnosis that brought them to the ED in the first place. Notably, there are few safeguards in place to reduce recurrent ED visits.

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 came the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, which allowed Medicare to reduce payments to hospitals with excessive readmission rates. As a result, hospitals created programs to reduce readmissions, such as arranging for outpatient follow-up before discharge. However, such initiatives are only available to patients who are admitted to inpatient services and do not exist for patients who are discharged home from the ED. Thus, the ED represents a pivotal point in which clinicians can intervene to improve end-of-life care and reduce recurrent ED visits among older adult patients with advanced illnesses. The question then becomes: what should those interventions be?

Utilizing the ED as a means to enroll patients in palliative care programs represents a paradigm shift that may support older adults with advanced illness and repeat ED presentations. Palliative care is a rapidly growing field that is designed to provide supplementary care to patients with serious, life-limiting illnesses by providing medical, social, and emotional support to patients and their caregivers. Importantly, palliative care does not depend on prognosis and may be delivered in conjunction with life-prolonging treatment.

Multiple studies have shown that palliative care improves quality of life among patients and their families, lessens symptom burden, reduces future ED visits, and helps patients achieve their end-of-life goals (as evidenced here and here). Further, when the American Board of Emergency Medicine officially recognized palliative medicine as a subspecialty in 2006, palliative care found a new role within the ED. As a result, there has been a surge of research regarding the benefits and feasibility of palliative care in the ED, as well as the best ways to design programs and educate providers.

Although the benefits have been well established, there are also significant barriers to implementing palliative care in the ED. Patients in the ED, particularly those in need of palliative care services, are often distressed and may not be receptive to discussions regarding end-of-life care. Additionally, some ED physicians may feel that palliative care is outside the scope of their practice. Others worry that the chaotic environment in the ED is not conducive to meaningful end-of-life care discussions, and that implementing palliative care in the ED may significantly impact wait times.

In spite of these barriers, frequent repeated ED visits are likely to become more common with the aging U.S. population, and initiating palliative care in the ED has the potential to improve care for older adults in several ways: by decreasing repeat ED visits, improving quality of life, and helping patients achieve their end-of-life goals. Future implementation science efforts may help to identify optimal strategies to deliver palliative care in the fast-moving and often disruptive ED environment.

 

By: Julia Allison Brickey
Julia Allison Brickey is a medical student at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

 

 

aginghearts Acute Myocardial Infarction, Coronary Intervention, heart failure, Prevention, Research

Utilization Frailty: a New Approach

 

Dr. Strom
Dr. Martin

Frailty, a disorder of impaired recovery after illness, is closely linked to mortality, but is not accounted for by many large-scale risk adjustment metrics since rigorous measurement of frailty can be time-intensive.  Thus, it is unclear if failure to account for frailty in risk adjustment methods results in undue penalties for hospitals taking care of large numbers of frail individuals.

In a retrospective cohort analysis of 785,127 Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries, Kundi et al. used a claims-based frailty index – known as the Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS) –to overcome the problem of time-intensive frailty measurement. The HFRS is a frailty index tied to clusters of resource utilization developed in a British population and subsequently externally validated in a Canadian population. The HFRS was created to further define patients at risk for poor outcomes by evaluating which administrative billing codes best identify individuals with prolonged hospital stay, increased rates of readmission, and increased rates of mortality.  These billing codes were then tallied to categorize patients into 3 risk groups including low (<5), intermediate (5-15), and high (>15) risk.  The HFRS has subsequently been associated with increased mortality after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) within the United States.

In the current study, Kundi et al. found that including the HFRS in the risk adjustment model used to calculate risk-standardized 30-day readmission rates (RSRSs) for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia hospitalizations improved prediction of 30-day readmission and short-term mortality compared to use of clinical comorbidities alone.  Across all 3 conditions, addition of the HFRS resulted in a statistically significant (p < 0.001) improvement in prediction of 30-day readmission and short-term mortality after adjusting for age, sex, race, and other comorbidities. These results imply that hospitals caring for high numbers of frail individuals may be disproportionately penalized for the quality of care delivered if frailty is not considered in risk adjustment algorithms, including the one used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Notably, frailty as defined by the HFRS only moderately correlates with two common definitions used by Fried and Rockwood. The HFRS defines frailty according to clusters of increased health resource utilization and adverse outcomes, so-called “utilization frailty,” and thus represents a distinct definition that may correlate only moderately with “syndromic frailty.”  Nevertheless, as this and other papers suggest, this definition identifies a higher risk subpopulation that is relevant to both clinical risk prediction and high healthcare utilization. This classification of frailty is increasingly important as the Medicare population continues to age and hospitals seek to tailor their post-discharge care for these high utilizing individuals.

In summary, the recent publication by Kundi et al. highlights the importance of risk adjustment for “utilization frailty” when assessing risk of short-term readmission and mortality after hospitalizations for three common acute medical conditions.  As detailed in the study, the HFRS could be used to identify and create care plans for patients that are high risk for readmission and mortality. Future research is needed to identify if hospitals that take care of higher numbers of frail patients are disproportionality penalized under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). In addition, the role of hospital-based interventions for high-risk frail patients to prevent adverse post-acute care outcomes warrants further inquiry.

By: Lila M Martin, MD, MPH; Jordan B Strom, MD, MSc, FACC, FASE

 

 

 

aginghearts Acute Myocardial Infarction, Research

Tailored risk for older adults: SILVER-AMI

dodson%20headshotWe recently published a paper on predicting 30-day readmission for older adults with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Our purpose was to evaluate whether aging-related functional impairments in mobility, cognition, and sensory domains would help to predict whether AMI patients would be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge, which has been subject of increasing focus by payors and health systems over the past decade. We analyzed data from the SILVER-AMI study, which exclusively enrolled participants aged ≥75 years, and included a detailed assessment of functional impairments.

What we found:

  • Among 3006 study participants with AMI (mean age 81.5 years), 547 (18.2%) were readmitted within 30 days.
  • Readmitted participants were older, with more comorbidities, and had a higher prevalence of functional impairments including disability in activities of daily living (17.0% vs. 13.0%), impaired functional mobility (72.5% vs. 53.6%) and weak grip strength (64.4% versus 59.2%).
  • After statistical modeling, our final risk model included 8 variables: functional mobility, ejection fraction, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arrhythmia, acute kidney injury, first diastolic blood pressure, P2Y12 inhibitor use, and general health status. While functional mobility was the only aging-related functional impairment retained in this model, it was also the strongest individual predictor.

Our risk model was well calibrated across categories of risk but had only modest discrimination – meaning there were other factors contributing to readmission risk (for example, related to the care environment or health system), that were not captured in SILVER-AMI.

Our hope is that our score can be used in a practical setting – for example, identifying patients for more intensive post-discharge care. Accordingly, our calculator is freely available at silverscore.org, or in the App Store here.

 

By: John Dodson, MD, MPH

 

aginghearts Research, Technology

There’s an App for That: mHealth and older adults with heart disease

searcyPerfect pairings:  Peanut butter and jelly.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Smartphones and geriatric patients?

While most people probably don’t picture their older adult relatives Facetiming their doctor on their iPhone or sporting a Fitbit to the gym, this could very well be the future of preventive medicine. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, 42% of adults over age 65 owned smartphones, up from 11% in 2011. With this rise in mobile technology ownership, there is new opportunity for patient engagement and management beyond the traditional face-to-face encounter. Older adults, especially those with cardiovascular disease, seem well-positioned to gain considerable benefit from mobile health (mHealth) technology. Their propensity for multimorbid disease, mobility impairment, social isolation, and transportation issues means that older adults have both elevated clinical needs and substantial barriers to traditional care strategies. In order to better understand the relative utility of mHealth technologies in older adult patients, we conducted a narrative literature review recently published in Current Geriatrics Reports.

What did we find?

  • There is a wealth of mHealth apps and wearable devices designed to aid in the monitoring of older adult patients with cardiovascular disease.
  • Adoption of mHealth technology by older adults is impeded by well-documented barriers that are physical, cognitive, and motivational in nature.
  • The physical and cognitive challenges can be partially alleviated with engineered solutions that make the mobile interface easier to use.
  • However, motivational barriers require personalized coaching and social support, which are unlikely to be overcome by engineered solutions alone.
  • Studies to date have shown mixed results when mHealth interventions are adopted. More research is needed to prove their usefulness in the home setting.

What does this mean?

In short, there are still barriers to mHealth becoming standard in the treatment of cardiovascular disease in older adults. That being said, several trials have demonstrated significant improvement in blood pressure monitoring, heart failure management, arrhythmia monitoring, medication adherence, and feelings of social isolation. While it is important to keep in mind that results have been mixed with regard to the efficacy of specific mHealth intervention strategies, it makes logical sense that using smartphones and other devices to gather more patient data points between office visits would facilitate more informed care. It is critical to ensure that these strategies 1) produce trustworthy and reliable information and 2) are cost-effective.

Where do we go from here?

Moving forward, it is essential that mHealth developers incorporate the specific engineering solutions to aging-related problems outlined both in our review article and elsewhere to facilitate use with older adults. We must also continue to investigate whether mHealth interventions can be an effective and appropriate supplement to existing care paradigms in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Though it is still too early to be certain, we believe there is great potential in mHealth interventions for older adults, and we are excited to see the ways in which technology is incorporated into patient care.

By: Ryan Searcy

Ryan is a 2nd-year medical student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Ryan was also a Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) Program scholar at NYU School of Medicine, where he participated in aging-related research and geriatrics.

aginghearts Research

CoMPAdRE: A Connecting Point for Aging Researchers

Ruth Masterson CreberWhat is the CoMPAdRE program?
The CoMPAdRE program is an interprofessional, early career mentorship program for faculty who are interested in patient-centered aging research. The acronym CoMPAdRE stands for Columbia University Mentor Peer Aging Research. Compadre also means “friend or companion,” representing the purpose of this program—to build a network of peer relationships that can be sustained over the course of a career.

Many traditional mentoring programs are structured as dyadic relationships between a senior mentor and junior mentee. However, this traditional dyadic model can put undue pressure on both the mentor and mentee.  Moreover, mentees may have trouble identifying senior mentors who are available and willing to invest the time needed to develop a productive dyadic relationship. This issue is particularly problematic for women and racial and ethnic minorities who traditionally have had less access to professional networks (additional information here) with potential senior mentors. There is a large body of research demonstrating the benefits of mentorship, such as access to career development opportunities; therefore, individuals who are excluded from mentorship opportunities are often disadvantaged with regard to career development. CoMPAdRE seeks to address shortcomings of traditional mentoring programs by offering a new model: a hybrid of a dyadic and peer mentorship model, known as facilitated peer mentorship. The program is led by a senior mentor, Mathew Maurer MD, but the focus is on building a strong, interprofessional peer network.

Why is this program interprofessional?
Over the past decade, the care of older adults has become much more clinically complex and fragmented. As patients live longer with multiple comorbid conditions, they are receiving care from a number of specialized providers, creating greater possibilities for fragmentation in care. Collaborative mentorship teams facilitate sharing of ideas and learning opportunities across disciplines. For example, when caring for older adults with heart failure, programs such as the Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction Program at Weill Cornell Medicine include physicians, nurses, and social workers. Both holistic patient care and thought leadership require an interprofessional team that bring together specific domain expertise. By bringing together a diverse cohort of health professionals from across the country, CoMPAdRE has facilitated a unique learning experience for sharing ideas, developing skills, and building relationships.

How does CoMPAdRE impact patients?
The value of mentorship goes back to the underlying importance of reducing clinician burnout and supporting sustainability. When healthcare providers feel connected through a common mission, they have more capacity to fully engage with the needs of their patients, and conduct high-impact research focused on improving patient outcomes. Clinicians and researchers thrive most when they feel their work is valued.

What will you take away from this program?
Mentorship and giving back to the community takes place at every career stage. CoMPAdRE has hosted many global leaders in aging including Drs. Luigi Ferrucci, Linda Fried, Stephanie Studenski, Terry Fulmer, Mary Tinetti, and Mark Supiano, among others. Each speaker not only shared their career highlights, but the accompanying personal stories that paralleled the highs and lows of their careers. As a group, we learned how to manage time, stay focused, and most of all, value and cultivate relationships. A major theme of discussion throughout the program was that, over the course of clinical training, skills in management, leadership, and administration are not taught, and yet are expected as part of the job. One of the benefits of this program is that it provides the mentees with a structured opportunity to learn more about these skills with direct application into our clinical practices and programs of research.

Despite being a program for “early career” faculty, we were all encouraged to not only seek out mentorship and support, but to also serve as mentor to others. A critical takeaway point from this program was the necessity of mentoring at all career levels; it is never too early or too late to support others through mentorship.

How can we find out more about the program?
If you are interested in finding out more information about this CoMPAdRE program, you can read more details about this program in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

 

By: Ruth Masterson Creber, PhD, MSc, RN

Ruth Masterson Creber is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Healthcare Policy and Research at Weill Cornell Medicine.