Background Whole person care is a new paradigm for serious illness beyond disease specific practice guidelines and lacks robust evaluation. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the effects of LifeCourse(LC), a person-centered program for patients living with serious illness, utilization of healthcare, care experience and quality of life.

Methods This quasi-experimental intervention study with a Usual Care (UC) comparison group was conducted between 2012–2017. Enrolled patients (N=903) were estimated to be within 3 years of end of life and diagnosed with 1+ serious illness. Community health workers (CHWs) delivered standardized monthly 1-hour home visits based on palliative care guidelines to assist patients in identifying self-defined goals, support ongoing person-centered advance care planning, and promote physical, psychosocial and financial wellbeing. Primary outcomes included healthcare utilization measured by electronic health records and patient and caregiver-reported experience and quality of life measured every 3 months.

Results Patients were elderly (LC 74, UC 78 years) and primarily non-Hispanic, white, living at home, and had a cardiovascular primary diagnosis (LC 69%, UC 57%). A higher proportion of LC patients completed advance directives during the study (N=173, 38%) than did UC patients (N=66, 15%; p<0.001). LC patients who died spent more days in hospice (88±191 days) compared to UC patients (44±71 days; p=0.018). LC patients reported greater improvements than UC in communication as part of the care experience (p=0.016).

Conclusions The implementation of person-centered programs delivered by CHWs is feasible. Inexpensive upstream expansion of palliative care models can yield benefits for patients and caregivers.