The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life: Revised and Expanded Second Edition
Nancy Berlinger, Bruce Jennings, and Susan M. Wolf
Abstract
Decisions about life-sustaining treatment are often ethically challenging for patients, surrogate decision-makers, and health care professionals. Providing safe, effective, and compassionate care near the end of life is a priority for health care organizations. In times of uncertainty, crisis, or reflection, and in efforts to improve health care for seriously ill patients, guidelines can help. This is an expanded and updating version of The Hastings Center's 1987 Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care of the Dying, which shaped the ethical and legal framework for d ... More
Decisions about life-sustaining treatment are often ethically challenging for patients, surrogate decision-makers, and health care professionals. Providing safe, effective, and compassionate care near the end of life is a priority for health care organizations. In times of uncertainty, crisis, or reflection, and in efforts to improve health care for seriously ill patients, guidelines can help. This is an expanded and updating version of The Hastings Center's 1987 Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care of the Dying, which shaped the ethical and legal framework for decision-making on treatment and end-of-life care in the United States. The new edition incorporates 25 years of research, innovation, and developments in law and policy. It summarizes the current framework for making good decisions about treatment and care and identifies educational and organizational goals for health care systems. It covers care planning, decision-making for adults and for children, care transitions, the determination of death, and the policies and processes that support good care at the bedside. It also addresses the psychological and social dimensions of care near the end of life, with attention to effective communication with patients and loved ones and among team members.
Keywords:
life-sustaining treatment,
end of life,
decision-making,
health care systems,
care planning,
care transitions,
death
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199974566 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199974566.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Nancy Berlinger, author
Hastings Center
Bruce Jennings, author
Center for Humans and Nature
Susan M. Wolf, author
University of Minnesota
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