The Serious Illness Care (SIC) Program was created by a team of palliative care experts at Ariadne Labs to address the challenge of compassionate and clear conversations to ease confusion and fear when patients face serious, life-threatening illness. At the center of the program is the Serious Illness Conversation Guide, which offers clinicians language to ask patients about their goals, values, and wishes. The guide is one element of a multi-component program creating system-level support for clinicians to have these important conversations with their patients.
Ariadne Labs’ Serious Illness Care Program has recently shared a newly updated and revised Serious Illness Conversation Guide, which has been refined through an iterative, community-engaged process to be more inclusive and accessible for diverse patients with serious illness and their important people.
Throughout the process, Ariadne Labs relied heavily on input and feedback from a group of patients and caregivers, all people of color, through the Patient Advocacy Foundation. We also were assisted by clinicians and communication experts from federally qualified health centers, safety net hospitals, academic medical centers, integrated health systems and non-profit community organizations.
The newest version of the Guide retains its original structure and flow while incorporating patient-tested changes to the language, making the tone of the Guide more conversational and emotionally safe. Responding to additional patient input, we have also added a question about hopes to the explore section of the Guide.
Please click here to view, download and print the revised Guide. It can also be found here, on Ariadne Labs website. We have also included a brief, one page explanation of the changes made. Please feel free to share both the revised guide and the one-pager with interested colleagues. To learn more about the why and how of Ariadne Labs’ year-long revision process, click here to join Ariadne Labs’ Community of Practice and watch a webinar recording with Jo Paladino, Associate Director of Research and Implementation, Serious Illness Care.
Training is offered to NEPHO’s Family and Internal Medicine providers, Cardiologists, Pulmonologists, Oncologists, Neurologists, Oncology Surgeons and their advanced practice providers, NP/PA’s
CME will be offered and training is virtual. Please contact joseph.peppe@lahey.org or stephanie.k.cunningham@lahey.org for more information.