The Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI’s) has announced a Request for Information for Sharing of Advanced Care Planning Documents (“RFI”) at this link: RFI for Sharing of ACP Documents.

MeHI is working in collaboration with other stakeholders, including the MA Executive Office of Elder Affairs and the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care (“the Coalition”), to examine architectures and technologies that can be used by providers to reliably share Advanced Care Planning (ACP) documents electronically – across systems and platforms – and to improve the ability of clinicians, emergency medical services, and other caregivers to quickly and reliably identify a patient’s wishes and care preferences. 

People want their care preferences known, respected and shared with all their families and care providers and clinicians want to know and honor their patients’ care choices. We want to figure out the best way to make seamless ACP sharing to the point of care a reality for all residents and providers in the Commonwealth.

MeHI hopes that, through this RFI, interested parties will provide information, data and best practices that help inform us as we work together to advance the Coalition’s goals of ensuring that patients’ wishes, preferences and goals of care are both documented and made accessible regardless of place of care.  MeHI especially hopes to gather specific information about architectural approaches to solving these problems and about existing technologies as well as evidence of both their efficacy and cost.   MeHI would like to hear about all possible solutions to the current challenges to digitizing and sharing these documents and ensuring that the content of these ACP conversations are clearly documented and accessible across health care settings.

If there are specific questions about the project or the process, people are encouraged to reach out to MeHI’s Judy Iwanski at iwanski@masstech.org