Improving Medical-Legal Advance Care Planning

The importance of advance care planning (ACP) has been increasingly recognized by health systems. However, 46-76% of patients report engaging in ACP with lawyers, while only a minority report doing so with physicians. In the U.S. ACP with lawyers focuses on advance directive documents, naturally occurs outside of healthcare contexts, and is often uninformed by the clinical context, such one ’s prognosis and clinical trajectory. These forms are regularly stored at home or at a lawyer’s office and not available at the bedside when needed in a medical crisis.
Source: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management - Category: Palliative Care Authors: Source Type: research