BACKGROUND: During serious illness, patient preferences regarding life-sustaining treatments play an important role in medical decisions. However, little is known about life-sustaining preference stability in this population ...

CONTEXT: Many individuals involved with care of the dying advocate expanding access to hospice care for persons with advanced lung, heart, or liver disease. However, to be eligible, these patients generally must have ...

The issues involved in deciding whether to use artificial methods of delivering hydration and nutrition are often very difficult for patients, families, and health care providers. Once private and personal matters, ...

Capitated or salaried managed care systems offer an important opportunity to provide high quality, cost-effective end-of-life care. However, capitated healthcare delivery systems have strong incentives to avoid patient populations ...

CONTEXT: Health values (utilities or preferences for health states) are often incorporated into clinical decisions and health care policy when issues of quality vs length of life arise, but little is known about health values ...