The “lone” clinical bioethicist working in a large, multisite hospital faces considerable challenges. While attempting to build ethics capacity and sustain a demanding range of responsibilities, he or she must also achieve an acceptable level of integration, sustainability, and accountability within a complex organisational structure. In an effort to address such inherent demands and to create a platform towards better evaluation and effectiveness, the Clinical Ethics Group at the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto is implementing the Hub and Spokes Strategy at seven hospitals. The goal of the Hub and Spokes Strategy is to foster an ethical climate and strengthen ethics capacity broadly throughout healthcare settings as well as create models in clinical bioethics that are excellent and effective.

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Background The impact of prior advance care planning (ACP) documentation on substitute decision-makers’ (SDMs) knowledge of values for end-of-life (EOL) care, and its correlation with SDM satisfaction with EOL care provision, have not been assessed in long-term care (LTC). Methods A cross-sectional survey of 2,595 SDMs from 27 LTC homes assessed: 1) knowledge of pre-existing ACP documentation and values for EOL care, and 2) the importance and satisfaction of EOL care provision in LTC. Knowledge of values for EOL care was compared to administrative documentation. Importance and satisfaction were plotted on a performance-importance grid. Multiple linear regression assessed whether knowledge of pre-existing ACP documentation correlated with satisfaction. Results The response rate was 25% (658/2,595); 69% of LTC residents had pre-existing ACP documentation. Discordance was noted between SDMs’ knowledge of values for EOL care and administrative documentation. Pre-existing knowledge of ACP documentation was not correlated with EOL care provision satisfaction. Priority areas for increasing satisfaction include illness management, SDM communication, and relationships with LTC clinicians. Conclusions The discordance between SDMs’ knowledge of values for EOL care and formal documentation needs to be addressed. Although pre-existing ACP documentation does not impact satisfaction, EOL care provision could be improved by targeting illness management, SDM communication, and relationships with LTC clinicians.

Background: Although clinical ethicists are becoming more prevalent in healthcare settings, their required training and education have not been clearly delineated. Most agree that training and education are important, but their nature and delivery remain topics of debate. One option is through completion of a clinical ethics fellowship.