Improving Medical Decision Making for Older Patients With End Stage Renal Disease

Documentation in the electronic health record reflecting an ACP conversation (any of the following: completion of advance directive or physician order for life sustaining treatment (POLST); code status documentation; provider note reflecting ACP discussion).

4 investigator designed questions about actions patient has taken with regards to ACP

survey assessment

3 investigator designed questions about conversations with family/friends about ACP

KD-QOL is a validated instrument to assess QOL that includes 36 questions with response options in likert scale format. The outcome measure is the difference in averaged scores between baseline and 12 months; It is calculated as (Score at visit 2 - Score at visit 1).

QOL is assessed by three components; physical health score, mental health score and kidney disease health score. Physical health score, mental health score and kidney disease health score are averaged scores of sub-scales. The range of each score and each sub-scale are 0 - 100, and higher values indicate better QOL status.

Health related quality of life will be assessed using a validated instrument EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) which has two components. There is a descriptive system with 5 dimensions: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. Each dimension has 3 levels: no problems, some problems, extreme problems. The respondent is asked to indicate his/her health state by ticking (or placing a cross) in the box against the most appropriate statement in each of the 5 dimensions. the other component is a visual analogue scale (VAS) that records the respondent's self-rated health on a 20 cm vertical, visual analogue scale with endpoints labelled 'the best health you can imagine' and 'the worst health you can imagine'.

We will measure decisional conflict using the decisional conflict scale (DCS), which attempts to measure decisional uncertainty.

For those patients randomized to the video intervention, we will measure, via survey, acceptability of the decision aid using a modified version of the validated Yorkshire Dialysis Decision Aid Usefulness Scale. We will also ask questions regarding comfort viewing the video, which we have validated in our prior work.

All patients will be asked their preferences for kidney failure care at baseline. We will then assess their follow-up preferences by chart review in the electronic medical record.

We will identify the major components of healthcare services used, including inpatient, pharmacy, outpatient, emergency department and dialysis. We will also examine utilization by subgroups with comorbidity of diabetes, heart failure and cardiovascular disease. We will use Medicare claims data to obtain the associated costs, including payments by Medicare and secondary payers (e.g., out-of-pocket payments).