Patient Experience of Care Study Underway
Partners HealthCare System and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts are collaborating with the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital to identify opportunities to improve care of patients at the end of life in the Partners system. Investigators hope to conduct structured interviews with families of patients who have died within the previous three to 12 months and with patients who are in the final stages of illness who anticipate death within six months.
Approximately 100 interviews will be conducted at five Partners facilities: BWH, MGH, Faulkner, Newton-Wellesley and North Shore Medical Center. The goal is to identify 20 cases total at each facility, and 10 patients and 10 family members at each facility. All information gathered will be held in strictest confidence, and participation is completely voluntary.
In order to participate, patients must be 18 years old or older, have been diagnosed with a terminal illness (anticipated death within six months), speak English and are receiving end-of-life care at a Partners facility. Also eligible are family members or relatives of a patient who had received primary medical treatment at a Partners facility and whose death within the past three to 12 months was the result of a terminal illness. Relatives participating in the study must have been a caretaker for the patient within the last three months of the patient’s life, and speak English.
The study investigators would like to obtain an equitable distribution of patients with cancer and other diagnoses.
To refer potential participants, e-mail Sandra Feibelmann at sfeibelmann@partners.org or BWH site leader Robert C. Goldszer, MD, MBA, at rgoldszer@partners.org.