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

27 juli 2026 uppdaterad av: 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.

Studieöversikt

Status

Har inte rekryterat ännu

Betingelser

Intervention / Behandling

Detaljerad beskrivning

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.

Studietyp

Interventionell

Inskrivning (Beräknad)

200

Fas

  • Inte tillämpbar

Kontakter och platser

Det här avsnittet innehåller kontaktuppgifter för dem som genomför studien och information om var denna studie genomförs.

Studiekontakt

Studieorter

  • Förenta staterna
    • California
      • Palo Alto, California, Förenta staterna, 94304-1207
        • VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA
        • Huvudutredare:
          • Manali I Patel, MD MSPH
        • Kontakt:

Deltagandekriterier

Forskare letar efter personer som passar en viss beskrivning, så kallade behörighetskriterier. Några exempel på dessa kriterier är en persons allmänna hälsotillstånd eller tidigare behandlingar.

Urvalskriterier

Åldrar som är berättigade till studier

  • Vuxen
  • Äldre vuxen

Tar emot friska volontärer

Nej

Beskrivning

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

Studieplan

Det här avsnittet ger detaljer om studieplanen, inklusive hur studien är utformad och vad studien mäter.

Hur är studien utformad?

Designdetaljer

  • Primärt syfte: Hälsovårdsforskning
  • Tilldelning: Randomiserad
  • Interventionsmodell: Parallellt uppdrag
  • Maskning: Trippel

Vapen och interventioner

Deltagargrupp / Arm
Intervention / Behandling
Aktiv komparator: Usual Care
Participants will receive usual cancer care for 12 months or until death whichever is first.
Beteende: Usual Care
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
Andra namn:
  • Standard of care, standard therapy
Experimentell: 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.
Beteende: Usual Care
Usual care or standard of care as per the clinical site in which participant is receiving cancer care.
Andra namn:
  • Standard of care, standard therapy
Beteende: 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.
Andra namn:
  • Goals of Care Behavioral Intervention

Vad mäter studien?

Primära resultatmått

Resultatmått
Åtgärdsbeskrivning
Tidsram
Life Sustaining Treatment Documentation
Tidsram: 3 months
Proportion of participants in both study groups who have a life sustaining treatment document in the electronic health record.
3 months

Sekundära resultatmått

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

Andra resultatmått

Resultatmått
Åtgärdsbeskrivning
Tidsram
Family reported quality of end-of-life care
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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
Tidsram: 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:
Tidsram: 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)
Tidsram: 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

Samarbetspartners och utredare

Det är här du hittar personer och organisationer som är involverade i denna studie.

Sponsor

VA Office of Research and Development

Utredare

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

Studieavstämningsdatum

Dessa datum spårar framstegen för inlämningar av studieposter och sammanfattande resultat till ClinicalTrials.gov. Studieposter och rapporterade resultat granskas av National Library of Medicine (NLM) för att säkerställa att de uppfyller specifika kvalitetskontrollstandarder innan de publiceras på den offentliga webbplatsen.

Studera stora datum

Studiestart (Beräknad)

15 september 2026

Primärt slutförande (Beräknad)

30 juni 2031

Avslutad studie (Beräknad)

30 juni 2031

Studieregistreringsdatum

Först inskickad

22 juni 2026

Först inskickad som uppfyllde QC-kriterierna

7 juli 2026

Första postat (Faktisk)

8 juli 2026

Uppdateringar av studier

Senaste uppdatering publicerad (Faktisk)

29 juli 2026

Senaste inskickade uppdateringen som uppfyllde QC-kriterierna

27 juli 2026

Senast verifierad

1 juli 2026

Mer information

Termer relaterade till denna studie

Nyckelord

Ytterligare relevanta MeSH-villkor

Andra studie-ID-nummer

  • HSR6-015-24W
  • 1-I01-RD-0000421-01-A1 (Annat bidrag/finansieringsnummer: VA HSR&D eRA)

Plan för individuella deltagardata (IPD)

Planerar du att dela individuella deltagardata (IPD)?

NEJ

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Nej

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