Medical Ethics Advisor – April 1, 2013
April 1, 2013
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Momentum to better respect patients’ end-of-life wishes "growing every day"
A growing number of states are promoting Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Paradigm Programs, with the goal of helping physicians to better respect their patients wishes for end-of-life care. -
Ethics of prescribing choices in forefront
The relief of suffering, including suffering from untreated pain, is fundamental to the idea of ethical practice in medicine, according to Nancy Berlinger, PhD, a research scholar at The Hastings Center in Garrison, NY. -
Ethics of high-tech, high-cost interventions
It is important that the medical community understands that the cardiology and cardiac surgery communities are confronting end-of-life issues and the need to make appropriate treatment decisions based on an assessment of the likelihood that it will make a difference in a positive way, usually in a frail, sick, elderly patients life, argues Patrick OGara, MD, FACC, president-elect of the American College of Cardiology and executive medical director of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. -
Tax incentives don’t appear to increase organ donation
Would you expect that offering state tax incentives or credits would increase organ donation? -
Payment reform could mean more ethical care
Many providers and health systems are unaware of the opportunity to leverage payment reform to develop or align community-based resources in order to provide better care and more support to patients post-discharge under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to James Corbett, JD, MDiv, a fellow at Harvard Medical Schools Division of Medical Ethics and Vice President of Community Health and Ethics at Steward Health Care System in Boston, MA. They may not connect that payment reform presents a tremendous opportunity, he says.