Cristal Brown
Discipline: Physician
Funding awarded to: University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School
Building bridges in End-stage Liver Disease (ESLD): Development of an outpatient, clinic-based interdisciplinary team intervention to improve Advance Care Planning (ACP) engagement
Mixed methods pilot study of an outpatient, clinic-based interdisciplinary team model, with integrative specialty palliative care, to measure and increase ACP engagement, establish measures of goal concordant care and examine impact on patient-reported quality of life measures in patients with end-stage liver disease (who are vulnerable to suboptimal outcomes due to medically and socially complex situations). Post-intervention qualitative interviews of providers, patients and caregivers will be performed to understand the care experience for refinement and to improve integrated palliative care in the management of disadvantaged ESLD patients for future study.
“The historic work showing the benefits of palliative care for oncology patients through
improvement in quality of life, often in conjunction with improved resource utilization, leads to growing adoption for this collaboration in chronic illnesses such as ESLD. Creating innovative models of care in collaboration with palliative care specialists to provide multiple layers of support for ESLD patients offers an opportunity to enhance the development of interdisciplinary teams that improve the quality of care for this seriously ill population.”