As already stated, during the discussion, participants in each group was tasked to identify at least three key challenging factors in collaboratively managing knowledge for multi-morbid chronic disease patients on ACP within personalized integrated care. The identified challenges were pinned on the board. For each challenge, participants were asked to identify the cause and consequence. In so doing more variables were stated. After identifying the direct and indirect causes, they then identified the direct and indirect consequences. Figure 1 depicts the structure and illustrative example of how the model was constructed.
To support participants. discussions and brainstorming, moderators were given a guiding questions and guiding steps and these were as follows:
“What challenges do you face in collaboratively managing knowledge for patients with multi-morbid chronic conditions on Advance Care Plan?”
The materials used during the FGD and showed in Fig. 2 included: Post-it notes (sticky notes), recorders, cellophane paper to place the post-it notes, and markers and tape. The cellophane papers were used to stick post-it notes as participants identified the different variables. This helped to keep the walls clean.
During the FGDs, three key challenges were identified i.e. culture (citizens don’t talk about death), healthcare professionals (change of attitude and perspective i.e. willingness, commitment and self-efficacy) and the system (changing the care model towards a holistic and shared care model). It was argued that one of the key challenges in collaboratively managing knowledge for multi-morbid chronic disease patients on ACP is culture i.e. predisposition of citizens and the population in general: when asked to expound on the subject, one of the participants argued that “We have to change the culture of talking little about illness and about dying. The important thing is that the disease catches us thinking, that there is a cultural change. It is also important for the public to be able or willing to talk about the disease about dying”. Another participant noted that “we are in a society that believes in survival and immortality and personalized medicine and so on., and it doesn't think that we are finite and we are going to die, we don't see dogmas and that's it”. Thus, the citizens/community is influenced, not only thinking that everything has a solution, but also that the media, generate a culture and influence on people.
The second identified key challenge to shared care planning was the healthcare professionals (HCP) change of attitude and perspective. This challenge is attributed to a number of factors e.g. the HCP’s attitude and perspectives towards ACP and patient centered care; self-efficacy (“Am I competent to develop planning with patients?”) including their readiness and engagement of practitioners/ professionals; the complex chronic patients polypharmacy management; the lack of social support; the lack of a clear guide/communication and ethics on how to work with palliative patients; and the limited time HCPs have to learn how to do things. One of the participants noted that “professionals do not dedicate time that the person needs, and this is often related to involvement, predisposition, training, culture as a chain and not knowing how to approach the subject well”.
The third identified key challenge was an institutional/system challenge i.e. changing the care model towards a holistic and shared care model. Participants noted that there is need for institutional support in planning the protocol so that the model is prioritized and not taken as a voluntarism of professionals. Participants argued that by protocolising the care model, professionals are made to commit themselves. Here, they feel that they have the support needed to develop and implement the model. Other contributing attributes to “changing to a shared care model” are: fragmented care (lack of coordination between levels of care), clashing care objectives (i.e. comfort vs survival of people), a need for coordination and communication between primary care and hospital care, and a lack of time (sometimes there are many patients to treat in a short time).
After identifying the three key challenges, participants were further tasked to identify the causes and consequences to these specified key challenges (see Table 2). For each identified key challenge, causes and consequences were defined. In the section below, we present participants views.
3.2. Participants supporting views on identified key challenges, their causes and consequences
Challenge 1 culture (citizens don’t talk about death): The society believes in survival, immortality and in personalized medicine, etc. therefore, it does not think that ‘we’ are finite and are going to die. Walking towards a cultural change that promotes talking about death requires willingness and predisposition of the public to talk about death. It was also noted that “healthcare professionals have to change the culture of talking less about survival and more about the disease, about dying”. The important thing is to bring about a cultural change. Several causes were identified as affecting “We don’t talk about death”. These include: a) social culture of survival: there is a widespread culture in the population that there is a need to look for tools to survive and that there is always a solution for everything thus, unrealistic expectations are spread among people. It is therefore a ‘taboo in the society’ to talk about the end of life or death. People are not comfortable thinking and talking about death; b) the cultural importance given to the family in our society: for a Mediterranean family, everything is shared with the family so, HCPs address the family directly without even asking the patient who you want to inform; c) lack of patients’ autonomy and participation; there is no training or participation in decision making and the perspective of the patient and his environment is lacking in this process; d) fears of difficult situations: in general, both the population and in many cases the HCPs are afraid to face situations that they do not know how to deal with therefore, training is necessary and a reactive approach from HCPs, not preventive.
During the FGDs, the following consequences were identified for challenge 1 culture (citizens don’t talk about death), a) Avoidance behaviors that lead to bad quality of care i.e. not wanting to talk about death; b) A more fragile society, with a poorer level of health and more dependent on the system: i.e. the lack of culture of information to normalize thinking about death, leads to a fragile society. The culture of survival creates false expectations to the patients and HCPs do not communicate and inform the patient. The result is an unsustainable and totally ineffective health system. To avoid this, the HCPs would have to talk and communicate to the patient “that their quality of life is going to be worse, and that the scanner is not going to be of any use, for example”. This however takes time and some of the patients will not understand it; c) Unrealistic perceived need: society is hindering a more rational end-of-life option because its objective is survival. “HCPs could convey that there are limits and other ways, but there is no such support from majority of the healthcare professionals”; d) Difficulty to share: the population does not feel comfortable sharing their situation and the HCPs do not know how to face conversations about the end of life with the patients; e) Real absence of shared planning of care adapted to the individual: i.e. Shared care planning is a wish, they doubt that it is a reality; f) Inconsistency of messages between levels of care: this generates confusion in patients and caregivers, thousands of contradictory information exist; which generate a bad experience. It also means that the professionals are unable to plan care well; and g) Excessive use of resources for care activity (e.g. tests, consultations, etc.).
Based on the information given, three preliminary causal-loop diagram (CLD) were built. Construction of these models was done by two facilitators who analyzed, compared and merged the resulting descriptions. The CLDs were divided into sub-models based on the three identified key challenges i.e. Culture (citizens don’t talk about death), Healthcare professionals (change of attitude and perspective towards a shared care model) and the care system (change towards a holistic and shared care model). The resulting CLD model presented in Fig. 3, depicts the participants’ views of the causes and consequences for citizenship (We don’t talk about death) challenge. The variables presented in this sub-model are based on the outcome in Table 2 and appendix B.
In Appendix C, we represent the variables as per the participants’ discussions and in Fig. 3, we made alterations/revisions to give a more meaningful representation of the causal influences. For example, the revisions made are as follows: from “we don’t talk about death” to “talking about death”; from “culture” to “social culture of survival”; from “reactive approach, not preventive” to “reactive approach from HCPs not preventive”; from “creating unrealistic expectations” to “Reality of society expectations”; from “lack of autonomy, participation, decision-making, citizenship information” to “autonomy and participation in shared care”; from “real lack of shared planning” to “absence of shared planning”; from “unrealistic perceived need” to “perceived need for ACP by the society”; from “difficulty to share without the information” to “HCP and cares’ difficulty to represent patients’ views”; from “excessive use of resources” to “use of resources”; from “bad quality care” to “quality of care”; from “incoherent care directions” to “coherency of care directions”; and from “confusion of patients and informal carers” to “patients and informal carers’ confusion on care directions”. Two variables (general belief ‘there’s a solution for everything’ and taboo society and Mediterranean family) were deleted from the initual model (Appendix C) because they we signified in variable “social culture of survival”.
Challenge 2 HCPs’ change of attitude and perspective towards a shared care model: A number of influencing factors were identified as depicted in Fig. 4. It was noted that HCPs’ primarily provide rapid response to destabilizations thus, “the emergency route is always used and work has been done to have direct access to the hospital. But it has not worked. We have routes such as the pluripathology route that is implemented, but it is not perfect”; secondly, polypharmacy management is complex for chronic patients because these type of patients contact different specialists and thus drug interactions arise. The lack of a supervisor to review and adjust the patient's medication also affects successful implementation of ACP. Furthermore, HCPs self-efficacy i.e. “Are HCPs competent to develop a planning with patients?” this includes: their readiness, willingness and commitment etc. In general, “HCPs do not dedicate the time the person needs, and this is often related to involvement, predisposition, training, culture as a chain and not knowing how to approach the subject well” which affects ACP implementation. Overall, HCPs express that they have little time to learn how to do things (Time constraints) thus, lack adequate and quality time to provide suitable response (related to the paternalistic care model).
The causes identified for challenge 2 were as follows: a) Changes in priorities and inconsistencies in the system: this influences the objectives of the work and does not allow for continuity i.e. conflicting care objectives (comfort vs. survival of people). Care objectives conflict because they are not aligned between levels. What causes this is unknown, it may be multifactorial e.g. professional training, professional culture, social culture etc. “Social culture is where there is no room on the part of many professionals, to stop polypharmacy and selling the image that we must always do something, until the end of the patient's life”. This generates more problems; b) Fragmented objectives: there are no clear objectives that are passed on to the HCPs; so often the objectives change according to the new needs, challenges or problems that appear in the health system and at the community level; c) Prestige of the technical over the human, technification of medicine: professionals tend to order tests on patients, instead of taking the time to analyze the situation, talk to the patient and seek the tools available in the system to help address the patient's health problem; d) Paternalism: the paternalistic model of sapience is a barrier, “HCPs who consider that knowledge is theirs, setting the plan for the person without considering their needs. It is necessary to make the change to listen to the needs of people and make this a working tool, seeking a balance between autonomy and support in decision making, neither professionals nor patients are used to this”. Shared planning in this patient profile is laborious; e) Fear of the HCP to face these issues because he/she does not have the training and therefore does not know how to deal with the situation.
The identified consequences for challenge 2 include: a) distance between primary and hospital: there is no communication and coordination of activities carried out by HCPs (fragmented care); b) Persistence of the paternalistic approach; c) Lack of recognition of ACP as part of clinical practice: The HCPs feel that the ACP is not part of their job, due to lack of training and support by the organization. Lack of predisposition and knowledge of HCPs. Sometimes the lack of time, which is a reality, is used as an excuse by HCPs for not doing it; d) Different behaviors of HCPs: i.e. how to approach ACP. There is a need to develop training and sharing programs among HCPs; e) HCPs feel pressured (no time for anything anymore) and emotionally overwhelmed; there is dissatisfaction, discontent, weariness; f) Lack of listening to the patient (due to time, culture, attitude); f) Loss of the patient narrative/story: the patient is no longer spoken to or about. It is impossible to focus attention on the patient if the patient's narrative is not available; g) Bad experiences: in the type of care (hyperactivity of the clinic, biased care; lack of comprehensive care, of active listening to the patient) and in the emotions generated (suffering, abandonment, dissatisfaction, burnout of the professionals).
Based on the identified variables, the sub-model in appendix D was derived. Following the same approach that was used to derive Fig. 3, we came up with a revised sub-model of appendix D with changes to some of the identified variables. For example: “change in priorities and inconsistencies of the system” was revised to “consistency of healthcare system priorities”; “lack of ACP and EHR training” was revised to “Training on shared care skills and tools for HCPs” etc. Variables like change management, different professional behavior paternalistic approach, were deleted because they were already implied within other variables or they were not well elaborated in the description text. Thus, hard to identify their causality.
Challenge 3 the system (changing the care model towards a holistic and shared care model): This challenge is affected by a number of factors: 1) Lack of institutional advocacy to support, protocolise and encourage shared care planning; 2) Confronting care objectives; 3) Fragmented care with conflicting objectives i.e. there is a lack of coordination between levels of care due to internal communication barriers between administrations; it is therefore very difficult to collaborate due to problems of access, confidentiality, etc.; 4) Limited time on the side of the HCPs because they have many patients to see in a short time to treat not only the symptom but also the person; 5) Absence of a referent professionals in primary care, to coordinate care and decision making; and 6) Difficult access to social services, they exist, but it is difficult to access them. Change to a more comprehensive model, which also includes the socio-health area.
The identified causes for challenge 3 are as follows: Participants augured that the care model is not in line with the needs of society that is why administration does not adapt to them and there is little willingness to change. Secondly, the technology is not adapted to care i.e. The developers, who are technical personnel, are not on the teams in which they talk about what is needed from these technologies, which are made up of HCPs. In addition, patients are unable to adapt to these technologies, due to lack of knowledge, possibilities, knowledge etc. “An EHR has been developed in which everyone has a vision, where the patient does not have a space”. Further, there is a Lack of knowledge of tools or difficulty in using them. Participants stated that “there are so many tools available to practitioners, that many times practitioners do not know that there is already a tool available for ACP, and in many occasions the HCPs do not know how to use the tools available in history”. Also, there is no responsible team to coordinate and follow up ACP activities. Most people work in sealed departments and “everyone writes their own story, it is not really shared, not even with the HCPs involved in a person's care”. This results in a lack of shared vision of care or teamwork i.e. There are two extremes: the one who says "this does not touch me at all" and the one who says "the patient is mine". Thus there is no focus on people's needs and a lack of firmness in the orientation towards the main target, the patient.
The identified consequences challenge 3 include: 1) Unsustainable healthcare system; 2) Multiple tests/Polypharmacy i.e. it is easier to ask for a test or to give more treatments than to talk about death; 3) Heterogeneous care: this depends on the attitude and/or commitment of the HCP; 4) Lack of listening i.e. “patient is either not there or not listened to. Everything for the patient, but without the patient”, and 5) Times are not adapted to the needs of the patient and the HCP i.e. Full schedules make it difficult to accommodate new needs. It was noted that there is an overload of tasks and appointments and if the professional cannot manage them, he cannot make changes in the way he/she works, therefore it is very difficult to adapt to the needs. Finally, there is less efficient healthcare. Figure 5 represents the various identified causes and consequences to changing the care model towards a holistic and shared care model.