Project to Improve Communication About Serious Illness - Pilot Study (PICSI-P)

August 6, 2025 updated by: R. Engelberg, University of Washington

Using the Electronic Health Record to Identify and Promote Goals-of-Care Communication

This two-year pilot study will test whether a one-page "Jumpstart Form" will affect goals-of-care discussions in the hospital. This form will be provided to clinicians and will include patient-specific information about preferences for goals-of-care communication and for care, as well as tips to improve this communication. Jumpstart forms will also be provided to patients or, if they are unable to communicate, their surrogates/family members. The information on the form will be obtained from questionnaires. The form is tailored to help patients and surrogates talk with clinicians about goals of care. This study is based on a successful application of Jumpstart Form in the outpatient clinic setting.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

150

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Washington
      • Seattle, Washington, United States, 98195
        • University of Washington Medical Center
      • Seattle, Washington, United States, 98104
        • Harborview Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria, Patients: meeting criteria for serious illness (encompassing multiple acute and chronic illnesses) including:

  • those used by the Dartmouth Atlas to study end-of-life care in the US: malignant cancer/leukemia, chronic pulmonary disease, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, chronic liver disease, chronic renal disease, dementia, diabetes with end-organ damage, and peripheral vascular disease.
  • patients over age 65 with markers of frailty: albumin level <3.0 within 48 hours of admission and weight loss of ≥10 pounds in the past year.
  • hospitalized patients over age 80.
  • English-speaking

Exclusion Criteria, Patients:

  • unable to complete informed consent procedures and do not have a legal next of kin
  • restricted information status (e.g. prisoners)
  • pregnant

Inclusion Criteria, Surrogates:

  • involved in the care of an eligible patient as the legal next-of-kin
  • English-speaking

Exclusion Criteria, Surrogates:

  • unable to complete informed consent procedures

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Jumpstart Intervention
Behavioral: Jumpstart Intervention
The intervention has 4 steps: use electronic medical record (EHR) to identify seriously ill, hospitalized patients with no documentation of a goals-of-care (GOC) discussion during their current admission; the enrolled patient or his/her surrogate completes a survey assessing preferences for discussions about GOC, barriers to having such discussions, and current GOC which is used to create a "Jumpstart" form designed to prompt and guide a GOC discussion between the patient or surrogate and the clinicians caring for the patient; use natural language processing/machine learning (NLP/ML) approach to identify GOC discussions or advance directives in the EHR that occurred prior to admission and include this information on the Jumpstart form; and, deliver the Jumpstart form to the primary clinician team. The patient or surrogate is also provided with a version of the form.
No Intervention: Usual Inpatient Hospital Care

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Documentation of Goals of Care
Time Frame: At hospital discharge, an average of 2 weeks
Presence of documentation of goals of care discussions in the patient's electronic health record during the index hospitalization
At hospital discharge, an average of 2 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Washington

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Ruth Engelberg, PhD, University of Washington

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

July 1, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 30, 2020

Study Completion (Actual)

June 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 9, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 16, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

November 19, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 22, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 6, 2025

Last Verified

August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • STUDY00004821

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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