Friday, April 15, 2016
Hartford Foundation-Supported Survey Finds Most Doctors Ill-Equipped to Give End-of-Life Care
Nearly all doctors believe it’s important to talk with patients about the care they want in their final days. But most physicians work in systems that provide little help, and often they don’t know what to say or when to say it, according to a survey released Thursday.
The findings come as Medicare begins paying for end-of-life conversations and as many aging people fear spending their last days tethered to machines in a hospital.
Questioning a representative sampling of 736 physicians in 50 states, the study identified an array of barriers, practical and emotional, to having the painful talk about care near death...