Virtual Goals of Care Consultation for Advanced Frailty: a Qualitative Implementation Study Providing Insights from the Pandemic

Abstract

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care (LTC) facilities faced challenges in establishing appropriate goals of care (GoC) for residents during health crises. To address this, a virtual specialist consultation program was implemented to align care interventions with residents’ frailty and expected outcomes.

Methods

We explored barriers and enablers to the implementation and sustainability of the program using structured interviews (n=20) with LTC leadership, health-care staff, and members of the program. Data were coded according to the constructs of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) using thematic analysis.

Results

Participants described how the program improved care and reduced unnecessary transfers. Implementation was enabled by a high degree of tension for change, relative priority, relative advantage, and the team’s shared mental model of frailty-care. Inconsistencies in GoC approaches and information silos between LTC and acute-care challenged implementation. Sustainability was hindered by decreased pandemic urgency, resulting in reallocation of resources to usual care. The need for a specialized GoC service in LTC became less obvious outside of a crisis.

Conclusions

This implementation study provides important insights for future spread and scale of embedding virtual specialist consultation services into LTC. The findings underscore the importance of collegial relationships and shared care philosophies to effectively implement frailty-informed care initiatives during crises. However, sustaining cross-sectoral GoC services may be challenging amidst evolving workloads and prevailing cultural perceptions of end-of-life care needs.