Disseminating a Digital ACP Platform (Our Care Wishes) to Hospitalized Patients

Penn Medicine has created a novel, online, evidence-based advance care planning (ACP) platform through its Center for Health Care Innovation. The platform is called "Our Care Wishes" and utilizes a 'shopping-cart' approach to ACP, allowing users to name surrogate decision makers, make choices about quality of life and medical treatments, outline medical wishes and organ donation, and share preferences for their end of life experience. Our Care Wishes then creates an easy to read, updatable ACP document that can be electronically shared with loved ones and uploaded to a patient's electronic medical record in PennChart. It is believed that this platform may help to overcome engagement and infrastructure barriers previously identified in the literature regarding the completion of ACP documents. The intervention will consist of multi-channel information dissemination regarding Our Care Wishes to Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania patients admitted through two locations (the Emergency Department, Silverstein 1 Admission Office) and outpatients who are seen in Pre-Admission Testing (PAT). All patients visiting these two locations during the intervention phase will receive a paper handout with information regarding Our Care Wishes included in their customary admission folder packet. The registration representative (RR) at these three locations will provide a brief explanation of the site as they check the patients in, as well send the patients a direct link to the site for non-ED admits via email and text message.