Use of the Electronic Medical Record to Screen Code Status Preference Using Death Language

Purpose

In order to systematically improve code status communication and documentation while clarifying how providers understand code status decisions, we propose the Choice of Diction's Effect Electronic Measures of Resuscitation Study Inpatient (CODE-EMRS.I) with 3 aims: Aim 1 - Determine rate of patient utilization of code status invitation (research) via the Portal (Hypothesis 1: Participants with an existing Portal are more likely to participate in research than new signups); Aim 2 - Evaluate different phrasings in code status prompts with and without death language (Hypothesis 2: Participants are more likely to pick no code with death language than without); Aim 3 - Determine how objective data drives physician agreement on code status decision (Hypothesis 3: Physicians are more likely to disagree with full code decisions for poor GO-FAR, but not CCI). Participants will fill out all study questionnaires electronically, but have options within these to ask to speak to a study physician/their own physician for clarification. After completing the surveys, the research associate will deliver the patient's code status decision to the attending of record and ask their views on it. Once a week, participants who have expressed interest in the study (by clicking the "I am interested" button) but have not completed the study will receive a reminder to complete the study as well as an offer to withdraw from the study in that same communication.

Condition

  • Code Status Discussions With Medical In-patients

Eligibility

Eligible Ages
Over 65 Years
Eligible Sex
All
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Inclusion Criteria

  • Age >65, English-fluency in reading and speaking, and the capacity to consent

Exclusion Criteria

  • Requiring ICU-level care

Study Design

Phase
N/A
Study Type
Interventional
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention Model
Parallel Assignment
Primary Purpose
Health Services Research
Masking
None (Open Label)

Arm Groups

ArmDescriptionAssigned Intervention
Experimental
Experimental/Death language
Participants will be asked: The purpose of this trial is to understand how the words we use to describe CPR affect patient decisions. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed when the heart stops beating. It consists of electric shocks to the heart, pumping the chest to circulate blood, and using a breathing machine to help with breathing. The success rate of CPR is about 1 in 7, and even when the heart restarts, the brain and other organs can be damaged. If your heart were to stop beating and you were to die without resuscitation, would you prefer that we attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), or would you prefer that we do not resuscitate (DNR)?
  • Behavioral: Death language
    We will explicitly mention death when letting the participant know about CPR
No Intervention
Standard/non-death language
Participants will be asked: The purpose of this trial is to understand how the words we use to describe CPR affect patient decisions. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed when the heart stops beating. It consists of electric shocks to the heart, pumping the chest to circulate blood, and using a breathing machine to help with breathing. The success rate of CPR is about 1 in 7, and even when the heart restarts, the brain and other organs can be damaged. If your heart were to stop beating, would you prefer that we attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), or would you prefer that we do not resuscitate (DNR)?

Recruiting Locations

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital - New Brunswick
New Brunswick 5101717, New Jersey 5101760 08901
Contact:
Karthik Kota, MD MPH
732-235-7112
karthik.kota@rutgers.edu

More Details

Status
Recruiting
Sponsor
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Study Contact

Karthik J Kota, MD MPH
732-235-7112
karthik.kota@rutgers.edu