Full open-access paper here. https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/21385/accepted
What I love about working in an academic health center is the luxury of being surrounded by people smarter, and more hardworking than I am. Here are Drs. Portz and Lum analyzing our data on the capture of patient’s Advance Care Plans – ACPs (including the Medical Durable Power of Attorney MDPOA) and other documents online via our patient portal.
We believe we are among the first in the country to offer the ability for patients to complete this online and designate a medical decision-maker in the event of their incapacity. Furthermore, we now accept photos of documents (easy and convenient via our patient portal app integrated with a smartphone camera — hooray modern tools for modern medicine) into the patient chart, and can see signatures, names, contact information, and details of MDPOAs, Living Wills and other ACPs.
And, during the anxieties of the pandemic, we had a significant uptick in patients completing the MDPOA and uploading images.
CMIO’s take? Another publication for our smart colleagues — good. Better patient care — great.
I would be interested in the discussion of Advanced Directives changing, as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic. My husband’s parents were very concerned that they would not be treated appropriately if they came down with COVID, due to how their plans were written previous to the outbreak. They in general do not want to be put on a ventilator but this pandemic changed their views. Meaning they wanted a special clause if they caught the virus. They did not foresee a Pandemic when they wrote out their directives.