Empowering Older Adults: Enhancing Advance Care Planning in Independent Living Facilities

Advance care planning (ACP) is an essential component of healthcare for older adults, enabling them to make informed decisions about their end-of-life (EOL) care. However, ACP completion rates among this population are low, leading to suboptimal care outcomes. The literature suggests that patient-focused educational programs are essential to improving ACP engagement which can improve ACP completion rates among older adults. An evidence-based practice project aims to implement an intervention to address a critical gap in improving healthcare services for older adults residing in a Maricopa County community-based independent living facility in Arizona. The transtheoretical model (TTM) and the intervention mapping (IM) framework guided the intervention's development, implementation, and evaluation. The proposed intervention involved providing residents with a patient education program covering various aspects of ACP, delivered by a healthcare professional. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated through the ACP engagement survey (Sudore et al.,2013) to measure outcomes such as overall engagement of ACP and individual’s self-efficacy and readiness as they pertain to ACP completion. Results indicated a significant improvement in participants' overall engagement with ACP, with increased median scores in self-efficacy and readiness for ACP completion. These findings underscore the importance of tailored educational interventions in promoting proactive engagement in ACP discussions and decision-making among older adults, ultimately leading to improved ACP completion rates and better EOL care outcomes.