Death, Taxes and Advance Directives

Summary

Suboptimal care at the end-of-life can be due to lack of access or knowledge of patient wishes. Ambiguity is often the result of non-standardized formats. Borrowing digital technology from other industries and using existing health information infrastructure can greatly improve the completion, storage, and distribution of advance directives. We believe several simple, low-cost adaptations to regional and federal programs can raise the standard of end-of-life care.

Citation: Wood NM, D’Amore JD, Jones SL, Sittig DF, Ness RB. Death, taxes and advance directives. Appl Clin Inf 2014; 5: 589–593 http://dx.doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2013-12-IE-0099

Keywords

Health information exchange - end of life - advance directive

• References

• 1 Hammes BJ, Rooney BL, Gundrum JD. A comparative, retrospective, observational study of the prevalence, availability, and specificity of advance care plans in a county that implemented an advance care planning microsystem. J Am Geriatr Soc 2010; 58 (Suppl. 07) 1249-1255.
• 2 Hughes A. State advance directive registries: A survey and assessment. Bifocal 2009; 31 (Suppl. 02) 23 36-50
• 3 Shapiro S. Your voice in the future? The role of advance directives near the end of life. Researching Law 2012; 24 (Suppl. 03) 1-12.
• 4 Wendler D, Rid A. Systematic review: the effect on surrogates of making treatment decisions for others. Ann Internal Med 2011; 154 (Suppl. 05) 336-346.
• 5 Hickman Jr RL, Daly BJ, Lee E. Decisional conflict and regret: Consequences of surrogate decision making for the chronically critically ill. Appl Nurs Res 2012; 25 (Suppl. 04) 271-275.
• 6 Silveira MJ, Kim SYH, Langa KM. Advance directives and outcomes of surrogate decision making before death. NEJM 2010; 362 (13) 1211-1218.
• 7 Nicholas LH, Langa KM, Iwashyna TJ, Weir DR. Regional variation in the association between advance directives and end-of-life Medicare expenditures. JAMA 2011; 1306 (13) 1447-1453.
• 8 Gallo JJ, Straton JB, Klag MJ, Meoni LA, Sulmasy DP, Wang NY Ford DE. Life-sustaining treatments: What do physicians want and do they express their wishes to others?. J Am Geriatr Soc 2003; 51 (Suppl. 07) 961-969.
• 9 U. S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.. State Operations Manual: Appendix A –Survey Protocol, Regulations and Interpretive Guidelines for Hospitals. Washington: Government Printing Office.; (Rev. 105, 03–21–14)
• 10 Yung Y, Walling AM, Min L, Wenger NS, Ganz DA. Documentation of advance care planning for community-dwelling elders. J Palliat Med 2010; 13 (Suppl. 07) 861-867.
• 11 Electronic Tax Administrative Advisory Committee Annual Report to Congress, June 2012. Washington: Government Printing Office.. Pub. 3415.
• 12 Five Wishes.. http://www.fivewishes.org Accessed April 10, 2014.
• 13 Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment.. http://www.polst.org Accessed April 10, 2014.
• 14 Hogan C, Lunney J, Gabel J, Lynn J. Medicare beneficiaries’ costs of care in the last year of life. Health Affairs 2001; 20 (Suppl. 04) 188-195.
• 15 Fine P. Make ’living will’ a requirement. Mod Healthc 2014; 44 (Suppl. 06) 19.
• 16 Brenner J, Smith A. 72% of online adults are social networking site users. Pew Internet Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-social-networking-site-users Accessed April 10, 2014.
• 17 Richtel M, Sack K. “Facebook urges members to add organ donor status.” The New York Times, May 1, 2012, sec. Technology. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/facebook-urges-members-toadd-organ-donor-status.html. Accessed December 11, 2013.
• 18 Vogel L. ‘Blue Button’ access to medical records. CMAJ 2010; 182 (16) E746.
• 19 Sittig DF, Joe JC. Toward a statewide health information technology center (abbreviated version). South Med J 2010; 103 (11) 1111-1114.
• 20 Frisse M, Johnson KB, Nian H, Davison CL, Gadd CS, Unertl KM, Turri PA, Chen Q. The financial impact of health information exchange on emergency department care. JAMIA 2012; 19 (Suppl. 03) 328-333
• 21 National Quality Forum.. Measure 0326 Advance Care Plan. http://www.qualityforum.org/qps Accessed April 10, 2014.