Dying in America

Dying in America PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309303133
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.

Dying in America

Dying in America PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309303133
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 470

Get Book Here

Book Description
For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.

Making Sense of Advance Directives

Making Sense of Advance Directives PDF Author: Nancy M. P. King
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780792311638
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This is a handbook of ethics for a diverse audience of health care providers. Its subject is the moral and legal force of 'advance directives', which are documents intended to declare and preserve the values, choices, and preferences of patients in the event that they become unable to make decisions about their own health care. The posture of the work is one of strong support for patients' individual health care choices, and encouragement of thoughtful use of advance directives to that end. The work presents a historical and conceptual examination of the patient's role in medical decision making and the refusal of treatment, with special attention to the problems of advance decision making. It examines the types and models of advance directives currently in common use and gives suggestions both about helping patients to write directives and about interpreting and making use of directives prepared by patients and encountered by clinicians. Finally, the implications of the suggested policy are examined in light of growing concerns about the scarcity of funds and resources for health care.

Advance Directives

Advance Directives PDF Author: Peter Lack
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400773773
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This volume gives an overview on the currently debated ethical issues regarding advance directives from an international perspective. It focuses on a wider understanding of the known and widely accepted concept of patient self-determination for future situations. Although advance directives have been widely discussed since the 1980s, the ethical bases of advance directives still remain a matter of heated debates. The book aims to contribute to these controversial debates by integrating fundamental ethical issues on advance directives with practical matters of their implementation. Cultural, national and professional differences in how advance directives are understood by health care professions and by patients, as well as in laws and regulations, are pinpointed.

Taking Advance Directives Seriously

Taking Advance Directives Seriously PDF Author: Robert S. Olick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781589010291
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In the quarter century since the landmark Karen Ann Quinlan case, an ethical, legal, and societal consensus supporting patients' rights to refuse life-sustaining treatment has become a cornerstone of bioethics. Patients now legally can write advance directives to govern their treatment decisions at a time of future incapacity, yet in clinical practice their wishes often are ignored. Examining the tension between incompetent patients' prior wishes and their current best interests as well as other challenges to advance directives, Robert S. Olick offers a comprehensive argument for favoring advance instructions during the dying process. He clarifies widespread confusion about the moral and legal weight of advance directives, and he prescribes changes in law, policy, and practice that would not only ensure that directives count in the care of the dying but also would define narrow instances when directives should not be followed. Olick also presents and develops an original theory of prospective autonomy that recasts and strengthens patient and family control. While focusing largely on philosophical issues the book devotes substantial attention to legal and policy questions and includes case studies throughout. An important resource for medical ethicists, lawyers, physicians, nurses, health care professionals, and patients' rights advocates, it champions the practical, ethical, and humane duty of taking advance directives seriously where it matters most-at the bedside of dying patients.

Advance Care Planning

Advance Care Planning PDF Author: Leah Rogne, Ph.D.
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826110215
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
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Getting Your Affairs in Order

Getting Your Affairs in Order PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Advance directives (Medical care)
Languages : en
Pages : 6

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Book Description


The Patient Self-Determination Act

The Patient Self-Determination Act PDF Author: Lawrence P. Ulrich
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589014534
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990 required medical facilities to provide patients with written notification of their right to refuse or consent to medical treatment. Using this Act as an important vehicle for improving the health care decisionmaking process, Lawrence P. Ulrich explains the social, legal, and ethical background to the Act by focusing on well-known cases such as those of Karen Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan, and he explores ways in which physicians and other caregivers can help patients face the complex issues in contemporary health care practices. According to Ulrich, health care facilities often address the letter of the law in a merely perfunctory way, even though the Act integrates all the major ethical issues in health care today. Ulrich argues that well-designed conversations between clinicians and patients or their surrogates will not only assist in preserving patient dignity — which is at the heart of the Act—but will also help institutions to manage the liability issues that the Act may have introduced. He particularly emphasizes developing effective advance directives. Ulrich examines related issues, such as the negative effect of managed care on patient self-determination, and concludes with a seldom-discussed issue: the importance of being a responsible patient. Showing how the Patient Self-Determination Act can be a linchpin of more meaningful and effective communication between patient and caregiver, this book provides concrete guidance to health care professionals, medical ethicists, and patient-rights advocates.

Getting Started with Advance Directives

Getting Started with Advance Directives PDF Author: Michael A. Kirtland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781641057448
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Taking Advance Directives Seriously

Taking Advance Directives Seriously PDF Author: Robert S. Olick
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589014176
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
In the quarter century since the landmark Karen Ann Quinlan case, an ethical, legal, and societal consensus supporting patients' rights to refuse life-sustaining treatment has become a cornerstone of bioethics. Patients now legally can write advance directives to govern their treatment decisions at a time of future incapacity, yet in clinical practice their wishes often are ignored. Examining the tension between incompetent patients' prior wishes and their current best interests as well as other challenges to advance directives, Robert S. Olick offers a comprehensive argument for favoring advance instructions during the dying process. He clarifies widespread confusion about the moral and legal weight of advance directives, and he prescribes changes in law, policy, and practice that would not only ensure that directives count in the care of the dying but also would define narrow instances when directives should not be followed. Olick also presents and develops an original theory of prospective autonomy that recasts and strengthens patient and family control. While focusing largely on philosophical issues the book devotes substantial attention to legal and policy questions and includes case studies throughout. An important resource for medical ethicists, lawyers, physicians, nurses, health care professionals, and patients' rights advocates, it champions the practical, ethical, and humane duty of taking advance directives seriously where it matters most-at the bedside of dying patients.

Deciding for Others

Deciding for Others PDF Author: Allen E. Buchanan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521311960
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
This book is the most comprehensive treatment available of one of the most urgent problems in bioethics: decision-making for incompetents.