Volandes, Angelo

Summaries of Independent Scientist (K) Awards

Institution: Massachusetts General Hospital
Grant Title: Improving End-of-Life Care for Cancer Patients with Video Decision Aids
Grant Number: K08 HS18780
Duration: 5 years (2010-2015)
Total Award: $800,300

Project Description: This research has three main aims:

1. Create a goals-of-care video decision aid for advanced cancer adhering to quality criteria for decision aids and assess the comfort level with the strategy of using video images in a patient decision aid on advance care planning.
2. Compare the end-of-life preferences, knowledge decisional conflict, comfort, and predictors of preferences among subjects randomly assigned to one of two decision-making modalities.
3. Assess oncologists' perceptions of the video decision aid, their expressed intent to use it, and their subsequent use of the video decision aid in actual clinical practice.

Career Goals: Dr. Volandes is an Instructor at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his MD from Yale University and served his residency at the Hospital University of Pennsylvania. The grantee was later a Clinical Research Fellow at the Center for Bioethics, Brigham and Women's Hospital. His long-term career goal is to become a skilled and established independent clinical investigator in health information technologies, specifically in the area of health care decisionmaking.

Progress to Date: Dr. Volandes developed a video decision aid for patients with advanced cancer that will serve as the basis for the remaining years of the grant. He surveyed 32 subjects with various advanced cancers from a variety of age groups. The video was shown to 14 subjects with advanced cancer.

Future Plans: Work will begin on Aim #2.

Highlights and Specific Accomplishments:

• John Hartford Foundation Junior Faculty Fellow, 2007.
• George Bennett Fellowship, 2007.
• Alzheimer's Association New Investigator Award, 2007.
• Merck/American Geriatrics Society New Investigator Award, 2009.

K-Generated Publications: None thus far.

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