Electronic tool to facilitate decision-making and advance care planning at the end of life in Emergency Departments

This collaborative project between clinicians, researchers and biomedical/software engineers is developing an electronic disease-specific decision support tool for older people wiht irreversible chronic illness. The comprehensive contents of this decision aid will fill gaps identified by us in tools previously developed by others. The tool incorporates risk of death, patient values, prognostic information and treatment preferences. Funded by a grant from the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation ($85,330)

The ultimate goal of this novel intervention is to improve clinicians’ confidence in discussing prognosis for chronic non-malignant diseases (pulmonary, cardiovascular and renal) which carry high burden but are usually not perceived by the public as life-threatening.

Prototype development is still underway, along with patient and clinician user testing.