Improving completion rate of advance care planning at a tertiary rheumatological centre in Singapore: a quality improvement project

Abstract

Advanced care planning (ACP) is a series of ongoing voluntary discussions between patients, families and healthcare professionals to plan for their future healthcare needs. Despite patients with rheumatic diseases having high symptom burden and disease complications, the ACP completion rates in patients with rheumatic diseases remain low. In this quality improvement project, we aimed to increase the number of completed ACP in a tertiary referral rheumatology centre in Singapore from 0 to 1 per month. We showed a statistically significant increase in ACP completion across 1 year with two Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles. Further studies are needed to explore further interventions for ACP completion in patients with rheumatic diseases.