Our Dream for ACP in Texas
ACP as it should be: Person-Centered, Integrated, Care Concordant & Accessible.
ACP as it is: Nonexistent, Institution specific, & rarely accessible.
We believe in = "ACP for All."
Let’s change this now for All Texans!
Our Goal: To revolutionize the process of Advance Care Planning (ACP) in Texas
We are a small nonprofit with a revolutionary idea & a long track record of success. For 20+ years we’ve been organized & run by volunteers: primarily nurses, social workers, chaplains and few physicians as their time would permit in Fort Worth. We’re seeking support for this project.
Covid changed things. Texans are more aware that their healthcare status could change in an instance. We have a death averse culture, so dying & end of life issues are rarely discussed even with some terminally ill patients. This is not an acceptable standard of healthcare.
Our Dream: Provide All Texans with Advance Care Planning (ACP) & ability to retrieve those decisions by clinicians; our beta site will start in the Spring of 2021 in Ft. Worth & grow statewide.
Our Challenge: To revolutionize the process of ACP in Texas by creating a registry of all Texan’s ACP documents & make those medical wishes available so any physician with a web browser can know & honor those healthcare decisions. Few Texans have ACP documents; studies show our minority communities have even less. The elderly, terminally ill & underserved populations are struggling the most with Covid. Ours is a unique effort to reach the terminally ill, the frail & our minority community by embedding into physician’s offices & other trusted partners.
This social intervention of providing ACP education, with documentation & storage is a radical change from the status quo. We seek for all Texans to benefit – especially our BIPOC neighbors, who may not have understood their health care rights & responsibilities. C&P participated in a study that was reported in JAMA Network May 2020. 1 The research question was: “Can a low-cost, easily scaled, end-of-life conversation game motivate underserved African American individuals to engage in advance care planning?” Currently, less than 25% of BIPOC have ACP planning. Hence, they are less likely to have their medical care wishes known & honored. This more informal approach to ACP yielded an increase in ACP document completion. If we want to increase concordant ACP wishes & care with BIPOC, then better methods of communication are in order to decrease the disparity.
Other states have brought multiple orgs together to accomplish ACP. C&P is fortunate to have a new Board President, Rev. Dr. Mike Johnston, who has helped build a coalition in South Carolina ($2.3 million project). C&P is collaborating with others to increase health literacy, health education & build a state registry. This is another example of how public & private funding can benefit marginalized people. Upfront we are utilizing gifts to develop the concept. Goal: Sustainable program. Initial education for partners will require philanthropic support; increase our development & create a revenue generating ACP Benefit service to assist the community at large & fund our program. We will start with part-time admin & facilitators to launch our efforts in Dr. Jerry Barker’s Oncology office.
Medicine is making a quantum leap from a paper & patriarchal system, to shared decision making & digitization of consent & ACP documents are necessary steps for best outcomes. Your support could change everything!