Today’s Managing Health Care
Costs Number is 3%
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| Source |
Radiolab
put up a great podcast last week asking the question, “How would doctors want
to be treated at the end of their lives?”
Specifically, they report on a study of physicians who graduated medical
school from the 1940s through the 1960s, who were surveyed periodically and are
now reaching old age. They asked them
what kind of care they would want if they had irreversible brain dysfunction,
and could not communicate with or recognize those around them.
No surprise, physicians wanted pain control and pretty much no
other medical intervention. 90% said
they wanted no cardio pulmonary resuscitation; under 5% said “yes” to CPR. The podcast points out that only 3% of people
receiving CPR survive more than a month with good cognitive function.
The California Health Care Foundation published
a related piece on this in 2011.
End of life care is expensive, and giving less futile care
is more consistent with the genuine desires of our patients. This is one of
those examples where higher quality also costs less.
1 comment:
That is a great article Jeff. It highlights the informed decisions that would be made by the group in society with the most information.
We need to have this conversation as a society sooner rather than later. Currently, we are not dealing with this effectively.
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