title: Provider Perspectives on Advance Care Planning for Patients with Kidney Disease: Whose Job Is It Anyway?
abstract: There is growing interest in efforts to enhance advance care planning for patients with kidney disease. Our goal was to elicit the perspectives on advance care planning of multidisciplinary providers who care for patients with advanced kidney disease.
  
  
  
  Between April and December of 2014, we conducted semistructured interviews at the Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System with 26 providers from a range of disciplines and specialties who care for patients with advanced kidney disease. Participants were asked about their perspectives and experiences related to advance care planning in this population. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed inductively using grounded theory.
  
  
  
  The comments of providers interviewed for this study spoke to significant system-level barriers to supporting the process of advance care planning for patients with advanced kidney disease. We identified four overlapping themes: (1) medical care for this population is complex and fragmented across settings and providers and over time; (2) lack of a shared understanding and vision of advance care planning and its relationship with other aspects of care, such as dialysis decision making; (3) unclear locus of responsibility and authority for advance care planning; and (4) lack of active collaboration and communication around advance care planning among different providers caring for the same patients.
  
  
  
  The comments of providers who care for patients with advanced kidney disease spotlight both the need for and the challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration around advance care planning for this population. Systematic efforts at a variety of organizational levels will likely be needed to support teamwork around advance care planning among the different providers who care for patients with advanced kidney disease.
authors.affiliation: Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care.|Hospital and Specialty Medicine Service, and.|Departments of Medicine and.
authors.forename: Ann M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: O'Hare
authors.affiliation: Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care.
authors.forename: Jackie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Szarka
authors.affiliation: Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care.
authors.forename: Lynne V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: McFarland
authors.affiliation: Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Janelle S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco, California.|Department of Medicine, San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, California.
authors.forename: Rebecca L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Sudore
authors.affiliation: Center for Innovation to Implementation, Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California; and.|Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
authors.forename: Ranak
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Trivedi
authors.affiliation: Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care.|Hospital and Specialty Medicine Service, and.
authors.forename: Lynn F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Reinke
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medicine and.
authors.forename: Elizabeth K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Vig
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D032722:Advance Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003657:Decision Making; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D004046:Dietetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009398:Nephrology; D024802:Nurse's Role; D010166:Palliative Care; D010819:Physician's Role; D011320:Primary Health Care
keywords: advance care planning; care complexity; chronic kidney disease; communication; cooperative behavior; decision making; end-of-life; grounded theory; humans; multidisciplinary; renal dialysis