Encouraging Older Adults and Adults With Serious Illness to Designate a Health Care Proxy
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Mailer, Provider Request, Pre-commitment Prompt.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Designating a Healthcare Proxy. Basic parameters: from 18 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
A Randomized Trial to Encourage Older Adults and Adults With Serious Illness to Designate a Health Care Proxy
Overview
This study is a Stage III randomized trial to encourage patients in advance of a health care appointment to designate a healthcare proxy. Patients will be randomly assigned to receive a mailer containing information about designating a healthcare proxy, or to not receive any mailer. For patients assigned to receive a mailer, the mailer will differ by the presence or absence of a patient pre-commitment prompt, and contain a personalized provider request or a generic health system request. The work will evaluate the randomized trial and identify factors that predict intervention effectiveness.
Interventions
- Behavioral Mailer
Patient mailers will ask the patient to name a healthcare proxy at their next primary care visit. - Behavioral Provider Request
Patient mailers will be sent from and signed by the patient's provider for their next scheduled primary care visit. - Behavioral Pre-commitment Prompt
Patient mailers will contain a box that asks the patient to bring a form with their choice for a healthcare proxy to their next primary care visit.
Primary outcome measures
- Proportion of patients with EHR-documented healthcare proxy [Time frame: From randomization through 30 days after the patient's scheduled index primary care visit date]
Secondary outcome measures (5)
- Proportion of patients with legal advance care planning documentation [Time frame: From randomization through 30 days after the patient's scheduled index primary care visit date]
- Proportion of patients that attended scheduled visit [Time frame: On the date of the patient's scheduled index primary care visit]
- Proportion of patients with EHR-documented healthcare proxy through 90 days [Time frame: From randomization through 90 days after the patient's scheduled index primary care visit date]
- Proportion of patients with legal advance care planning documentation through 90 days [Time frame: From randomization through 90 days after the patient's scheduled index primary care visit date]
- Proportion of patients with primary care visit through 90 days [Time frame: From randomization through 90 days after the patient's scheduled index primary care visit date]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- No EHR-documented healthcare proxy at enrollment
- Age ≥ 55 years OR age ≥ 18 years and listed in the health system's cancer, CHF, or CKD registries
Exclusion criteria
- Primary care provider not assigned at time of randomization.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Factorial
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Health services research
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- Contra Costa Regional Medical Center — Martinez
Identifiers
NCT: NCT07290478 · UP-23-01203 · P30AG024968