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Algorithm-enabled Goals of Care Communication (A-EPAC)

27 juli 2026 bijgewerkt door: 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.

Studie Overzicht

Toestand

Nog niet aan het werven

Conditie

Interventie / Behandeling

Gedetailleerde beschrijving

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.

Studietype

Ingrijpend

Inschrijving (Geschat)

200

Fase

  • Niet toepasbaar

Contacten en locaties

In dit gedeelte vindt u de contactgegevens van degenen die het onderzoek uitvoeren en informatie over waar dit onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd.

Studiecontact

Studie Locaties

  • Verenigde Staten
    • California
      • Palo Alto, California, Verenigde Staten, 94304-1207
        • VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA
        • Hoofdonderzoeker:
          • Manali I Patel, MD MSPH
        • Contact:

Deelname Criteria

Onderzoekers zoeken naar mensen die aan een bepaalde beschrijving voldoen, de zogenaamde geschiktheidscriteria. Enkele voorbeelden van deze criteria zijn iemands algemene gezondheidstoestand of eerdere behandelingen.

Geschiktheidscriteria

Leeftijden die in aanmerking komen voor studie

  • Volwassen
  • Oudere volwassene

Accepteert gezonde vrijwilligers

Nee

Beschrijving

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

Studie plan

Dit gedeelte bevat details van het studieplan, inclusief hoe de studie is opgezet en wat de studie meet.

Hoe is de studie opgezet?

Ontwerpdetails

  • Primair doel: Onderzoek naar gezondheidsdiensten
  • Toewijzing: Gerandomiseerd
  • Interventioneel model: Parallelle opdracht
  • Masker: Verdrievoudigen

Wapens en interventies

Deelnemersgroep / Arm
Interventie / Behandeling
Actieve vergelijker: Usual Care
Participants will receive usual cancer care for 12 months or until death whichever is first.
Gedragsmatig: Usual Care
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
Andere namen:
  • Standard of care, standard therapy
Experimenteel: 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.
Gedragsmatig: Usual Care
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
Andere namen:
  • Standard of care, standard therapy
Gedragsmatig: Usual Care + A-EPAC
Educational and support intervention for participants regarding goals of care discussions and engagement in these topics with a lay health worker.
Andere namen:
  • Goals of Care Behavioral Intervention

Wat meet het onderzoek?

Primaire uitkomstmaten

Uitkomstmaat
Maatregel Beschrijving
Tijdsspanne
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
Tijdsspanne: 3 months
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
3 months

Secundaire uitkomstmaten

Uitkomstmaat
Maatregel Beschrijving
Tijdsspanne
Patient-reported Anxiety and Depression
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 12 months
Any hospitalization or emergency room admission within 12-months of follow-up.
12 months
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
Tijdsspanne: 6 months
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
6 months
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
Tijdsspanne: 9 months
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
9 months
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
Tijdsspanne: 12 months
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
12 months

Andere uitkomstmaten

Uitkomstmaat
Maatregel Beschrijving
Tijdsspanne
Family reported quality of end-of-life care
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 12 months

Number of participants who die within 12-months of follow-up who had any

  • hospital or Intensive Care Unit admission <30 days before death,
  • receipt of any systemic therapy <14 days before death (defined as both oral and intravenous chemotherapy and immunotherapy),
  • hospice referral <3 days before death. (abstracted from electronic health record)
12 months
Acceptability
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 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
Tijdsspanne: 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
Organizational Climate:
Tijdsspanne: 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)
Tijdsspanne: 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

Medewerkers en onderzoekers

Hier vindt u mensen en organisaties die betrokken zijn bij dit onderzoek.

Sponsor

VA Office of Research and Development

Onderzoekers

  • Hoofdonderzoeker: Manali I Patel, MD MSPH, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA

Studie record data

Deze datums volgen de voortgang van het onderzoeksdossier en de samenvatting van de ingediende resultaten bij ClinicalTrials.gov. Studieverslagen en gerapporteerde resultaten worden beoordeeld door de National Library of Medicine (NLM) om er zeker van te zijn dat ze voldoen aan specifieke kwaliteitscontrolenormen voordat ze op de openbare website worden geplaatst.

Bestudeer belangrijke data

Studie start (Geschat)

15 september 2026

Primaire voltooiing (Geschat)

30 juni 2031

Studie voltooiing (Geschat)

30 juni 2031

Studieregistratiedata

Eerst ingediend

22 juni 2026

Eerst ingediend dat voldeed aan de QC-criteria

7 juli 2026

Eerst geplaatst (Werkelijk)

8 juli 2026

Updates van studierecords

Laatste update geplaatst (Werkelijk)

29 juli 2026

Laatste update ingediend die voldeed aan QC-criteria

27 juli 2026

Laatst geverifieerd

1 juli 2026

Meer informatie

Termen gerelateerd aan deze studie

Trefwoorden

Aanvullende relevante MeSH-voorwaarden

Andere studie-ID-nummers

  • HSR6-015-24W
  • 1-I01-RD-0000421-01-A1 (Ander subsidie-/financieringsnummer: VA HSR&D eRA)

Plan Individuele Deelnemersgegevens (IPD)

Bent u van plan om gegevens van individuele deelnemers (IPD) te delen?

NEE

Informatie over medicijnen en apparaten, studiedocumenten

Bestudeert een door de Amerikaanse FDA gereguleerd geneesmiddel

Nee

Bestudeert een door de Amerikaanse FDA gereguleerd apparaatproduct

Nee

product vervaardigd in en geëxporteerd uit de V.S.

Nee

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