Algorithm-enabled Goals of Care Communication (A-EPAC)
2026年7月27日 更新者:VA Office of Research and Development
Algorithm-Enabled Engagement of Patients With Advanced Cancer (A-EPAC) to Improve Goals of Care Communication Among Veterans With Advanced Stages of Cancer
In 2017, the VA launched the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative (LSTDI), a national program to promote Goals of Care communication between clinicians and patients regarding goals and preferences for care.
Despite clinician training and standardized Life Sustaining Treatment (LST) notes in the electronic health record (EHR), 60% of Veterans with cancer have not engaged in such communication with their oncology clinicians before death.
Over the past 10 years, the team developed and tested: 1) a lay health worker-led intervention to improve these conversations and reduce unwanted, intensive end-of-life care, and 2) an algorithm-driven approach to identify patients in need of urgent conversations with their clinical teams.
This randomized study will evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention combining these two approaches across 7 VA oncology sites.
The outcomes include LST documentation, Veteran-reported anxiety and depression, and the identification of factors to inform broad scale of Veteran-centric interventions to improve GoC communication.
調査の概要
状態
状態
まだ募集していません
条件
条件
介入・治療
介入・治療
詳細な説明
The investigators developed the Engagement of Patients with Advanced Cancer (EPAC) intervention - a 6-month telephone-based intervention in which trained lay health workers (LHWs) educate and empower Veterans with cancer to engage in goals of care conversations with their oncology clinical teams.
To facilitate scale, the investigator propose Algorithm-Enabled EPAC (A-EPAC), which uses the VA Care Assessment Needs (CAN) score to automatically identify patients with cancer who could benefit from EPAC.
This intent-to-treat randomized trial is conducted in collaboration with the NTO and the National VA Oncology Programs (NOP).
The investigators will randomize 200 Veterans with cancer receiving care across 7 VA facilities to either the A-EPAC intervention (algorithm-based identification and referral to EPAC for 6-months) or usual cancer care alone (cancer care provided by oncology teams at the local site).
Participants will be followed for 12-months post enrollment.
The primary outcome is Life Sustaining Treatment documentation at 3 months post-enrollment.
Secondary outcomes are patient anxiety and depression at 3 months measured by PROMIS® short forms.
Exploratory outcomes include intensive end-of-life care, advance directive documentation, and acute care use.
Using a quant-qual framework, the investigators will conduct validated surveys with 40 Veterans with cancer and Veteran and clinician interviews at 6 months to identify factors associated with feasibility, adoption, acceptability, and A-EPAC fidelity.
研究の種類
研究の種類
介入
入学 (推定)
入学
200
段階
段階
- 適用できない
連絡先と場所
このセクションには、調査を実施する担当者の連絡先の詳細と、この調査が実施されている場所に関する情報が記載されています。
研究連絡先
研究連絡先
- 名前:Manali I Patel, MD MSPH
- 電話番号:(650) 493-5000
- メール:Manali.Patel2@va.gov
研究場所
-
-
California
-
Palo Alto、California、アメリカ、94304-1207
- VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA
-
主任研究者:
- Manali I Patel, MD MSPH
-
コンタクト:
- Madhuri Agrawal
- 電話番号:(650) 304-7744
- メール:madhuri.agrawal@va.gov
-
-
参加基準
研究者は、適格基準と呼ばれる特定の説明に適合する人を探します。これらの基準のいくつかの例は、人の一般的な健康状態または以前の治療です。
適格基準
適格基準
就学可能な年齢
- 大人
- 高齢者
健康ボランティアの受け入れ
いいえ
説明
Inclusion Criteria:
- Veteran patients with diagnosis of a solid malignancy with any cancer stage
- English or Spanish-speaking
- Can self-administer questionnaires in English or Spanish
- Valid telephone number
- Receiving oncology care at one of 7 sites
Receiving systemic anti-cancer therapy, defined as oral, injection, or intravenous therapy
- chemotherapy
- hormone therapy
- targeted therapy
- or immunotherapy defined by the National Cancer Institute A to Z List of Cancer Drugs)
- CAN risk score ≥98th percentile (may be adjusted after examining site-level CAN performance)
Exclusion Criteria:
- No capacity to consent
- Actively receiving hospice care
研究計画
このセクションでは、研究がどのように設計され、研究が何を測定しているかなど、研究計画の詳細を提供します。
研究はどのように設計されていますか?
デザインの詳細
- 主な目的:ヘルスサービス研究
- 割り当て:ランダム化
- 介入モデル:並列代入
- マスキング:トリプル
アーム数
2
武器と介入
参加者グループ / アーム参加者グループ / アーム |
介入・治療介入・治療 |
|---|---|
|
アクティブコンパレータ:Usual Care
Participants will receive usual cancer care for 12 months or until death whichever is first.
|
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
他の名前:
|
|
実験的:Usual Care + A-EPAC
Participants will be assigned to a lay health worker who will conduct education sessions over 30-45 minutes by phone initially followed by 15 minute conversations twice monthly for 6 months to discuss goals of care and how to engage in these discussions with their clinical teams.
Participants will also receive usual cancer care for a total of 12 months or until death, whichever is first.
|
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
他の名前:
Educational and support intervention for participants regarding goals of care discussions and engagement in these topics with a lay health worker.
他の名前:
|
この研究は何を測定していますか?
主要な結果の測定
主要な結果の測定
結果測定 |
メジャーの説明 |
時間枠 |
|---|---|---|
|
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
時間枠:3 months
|
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
|
3 months
|
二次結果の測定
二次結果の測定
結果測定 |
メジャーの説明 |
時間枠 |
|---|---|---|
|
Patient-reported Anxiety and Depression
時間枠:3 months
|
Change in mean score using the validated PROMIS Short Form v1.0 of Anxiety 4a and Depression 4a between time of enrollment and 3 months post-enrollment.
Each scale consists of 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale.
Higher scores indicate greater symptom severity.
That is - higher score represents a worse outcome.
|
3 months
|
|
Advance Directive Documentation
時間枠:12 months
|
Proportion of participants with any advance directive documentation in the electronic health record between baseline and 12 months follow-up.
|
12 months
|
|
Acute Care Use
時間枠:12 months
|
Any hospitalization or emergency room admission within 12-months of follow-up.
|
12 months
|
|
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
時間枠:6 months
|
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
|
6 months
|
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Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
時間枠:9 months
|
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
|
9 months
|
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Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
時間枠:12 months
|
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
|
12 months
|
その他の成果指標
その他の成果指標
結果測定 |
メジャーの説明 |
時間枠 |
|---|---|---|
|
Family reported quality of end-of-life care
時間枠:12 months
|
For participants who die during the study period, the VA Veterans Experience Center will administer the Bereaved Family Survey which solicits bereaved family evaluations of care in the last 30 days of life.
One component of this survey is the National Quality Forum-endorsed measure called the BFS Performance Measure (BFS-PM), a single item evaluation of the overall quality of EOL care.
This measure is measured a 5-point Likert scale, which investigators will dichotomize as "excellent" vs all other categories.
This measure will be reported out descriptively.
|
12 months
|
|
Heard and Understood
時間枠:3 months
|
Descriptive measure using the National Quality Forum 4-item survey which assesses perceptions of quality of communication with the clinical team.
|
3 months
|
|
Proportion of patients with Intensive End of life Care
時間枠:12 months
|
Number of participants who die within 12-months of follow-up who had any
|
12 months
|
|
Acceptability
時間枠:6 months
|
Investigators will measure patient-reported acceptability using the 12-item validated Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) (Veterans or designated caregivers)
|
6 months
|
|
Beliefs about GoC communication
時間枠:6 months
|
Beliefs related to GoC communication (e.g., self-efficacy and readiness) will be measured using the 15-item validated Advance Care Planning Engagement survey (Veterans or designated caregivers), which has been validated in diverse populations of outpatients with advanced cancer.
Beliefs related to GoC communication will be assessed using the 28-item validated End-of-Life Care Questionnaire (EOL-Q) (clinicians, LHW)
|
6 months
|
|
Patient-Centered Care 1
時間枠:6 months
|
Patient-clinician communication will be measured among patients using validated communication items from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) (Veterans or designated caregivers).
|
6 months
|
|
Patient-Centered Care 2
時間枠:6 months
|
Patient engagement will be measured using a 4-item measure of shared decision making (SDM Process-4) (Veterans or designated caregivers)
|
6 months
|
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Organizational Climate:
時間枠:6 months
|
Investigators will administer the 18-item validated Implementation Climate Scale to capture degree to which the clinic supports use of GoC communication (clinicians, LHW)
|
6 months
|
|
Pragmatic Context Assessment Tool (pCAT)
時間枠:6 months
|
Investigators will administer a 14-item tool to assess barriers and facilitators to A-EPAC within the CFIR framework (Veterans or designated caregivers, clinician, LHW)
|
6 months
|
協力者と研究者
ここでは、この調査に関係する人々や組織を見つけることができます。
捜査官
捜査官
- 主任研究者:Manali I Patel, MD MSPH、VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA
研究記録日
これらの日付は、ClinicalTrials.gov への研究記録と要約結果の提出の進捗状況を追跡します。研究記録と報告された結果は、国立医学図書館 (NLM) によって審査され、公開 Web サイトに掲載される前に、特定の品質管理基準を満たしていることが確認されます。
主要日程の研究
研究開始 (推定)
研究開始
2026年9月15日
一次修了 (推定)
一次修了
2031年6月30日
研究の完了 (推定)
研究の完了
2031年6月30日
試験登録日
最初に提出
最初に提出
2026年6月22日
QC基準を満たした最初の提出物
QC基準を満たした最初の提出物
2026年7月7日
最初の投稿 (実際)
最初の投稿
2026年7月8日
学習記録の更新
投稿された最後の更新 (実際)
投稿された最後の更新
2026年7月29日
QC基準を満たした最後の更新が送信されました
QC基準を満たした最後の更新が送信されました
2026年7月27日
最終確認日
最終確認日
2026年7月1日
詳しくは
本研究に関する用語
キーワード
追加の関連 MeSH 用語
その他の研究ID番号
その他の研究ID番号
- HSR6-015-24W
- 1-I01-RD-0000421-01-A1 (その他の助成金/資金番号:VA HSR&D eRA)
個々の参加者データ (IPD) の計画
個々の参加者データ (IPD) を共有する予定はありますか?
いいえ
医薬品およびデバイス情報、研究文書
米国FDA規制医薬品の研究
いいえ
米国FDA規制機器製品の研究
いいえ
米国で製造され、米国から輸出された製品。
いいえ
この情報は、Web サイト clinicaltrials.gov から変更なしで直接取得したものです。研究の詳細を変更、削除、または更新するリクエストがある場合は、register@clinicaltrials.gov。 までご連絡ください。 clinicaltrials.gov に変更が加えられるとすぐに、ウェブサイトでも自動的に更新されます。