Background Early palliative care for advanced cancer patients improves quality of life and
survival, but less is known about its effect on intensive care unit (ICU) use at the end of life …

Background: Research has documented dramatic differences in health care utilization and
spending across US regions with similar levels of patient illness. Although patient outcomes …

Individual physicians are widely believed to play a large role in patients' decisions about
end-of-life care, but little empirical evidence supports this view. We developed a novel …

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate whether terminal care was consistent with Physician Orders for
Life‐Sustaining Treatment (POLST), a preprinted and signed doctor's order specifying …

Background: The impact of palliative home care programs on in-patient admissions and
deaths has not been appropriately established. Aim: The main objectives of this study have …

BACKGROUND: The intervention in SUPPORT, the Study to Understand Prognoses and
Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments, was ineffective in changing …

Background: Living wills, a type of advance directive, are promoted as a way for patients to
document preferences for life-sustaining treatments should they become incompetent …

PURPOSE: To help with planning of a palliative care program, we reviewed the place of
death of patients who were registered at our comprehensive cancer center and explored …

Purpose To explore norms of decision making regarding life-sustaining treatments (LSTs) at
two academic medical centers (AMCs) that contribute to their opposite extremes of end-of …

End-of-life care of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) often requires dramatic shifts in
attitudes and interventions, from traditional intensive rescue care to intensive palliative care …