Cancer patients who communicate regularly with their doctors choose less costly end-of-life care
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, March 11, 2009
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Cancer patients who discussed end-of-life care with their physicians prior to their death chose less expensive care than those who did not talk about this issue with their physicians, reports The Boston Globe. Because patients had a better understanding of their illness and what the costs associated with care were during the end stage of a patient's life, patients were able to make more educated choices, says the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study followed 600 patients with advanced cancer. Of those patients, 31% had talked to their doctors about end-of-life care, and as a result, the care they received during their last week of life cost 36% less than patients who had not discussed their end-of-life care with their physicians.
To read the article, click here.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Related Products
-
Develop Chapter Leaders
During this 90-minute program, proven accreditation specialist Jean Clark, RHIA, CSHA, will walk you through designing a...
-
Effectively Managing Patient Education:
It's easy to build or improve a patient education program with this book and CD-ROM. It delivers get step-by-step guidance...
-
Reducing Readmissions: A Blueprint for Improving Care Transitions
As the healthcare industry implements reforms that will penalize hospitals for readmissions deemed unnecessary, it’s crucial...
-
Patient and Family Advisory Councils
Join expert Melissa Winger to discover methods to sustain your existing patient/family advisory council. You will learn how...
-
Handoff Communication: A Structured Approach to Transitions in Care
During this 90-minute Webcast, our expert speakers will discuss the best way to implement a standardized approach to handoff...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- HIPAA Q&A: Answering service messages
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- E-mailed
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Are your workforce members texting PHI?
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q&A: Coding 'aspiration without pneumonia'
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- Avoid the trap of probable diagnoses
- Arkansas woman convicted for HIPAA violation
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Searched