205. Health Planning

205.995 Physician Signature on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Directives

 

Colorado Medical Society supports informed patient autonomy and supports the removal of the statutory mandate of the physician’s signature on the CPR directive;

• CMS supports using an appropriate document that is properly and legally executed by the patient in order to carry out patient CPR Directives.

(RES-7-A, AM 2007; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

 

205.996 Withholding or Withdrawing Life Sustaining Medical Treatment

 

The social commitment of the physician is to sustain life and relieve suffering. Where the performance of one duty conflicts with the other, the preferences of the patient should prevail. The principle of patient autonomy requires that physicians respect the decision to forego life-sustaining treatment of a patient who possesses decision-making capacity.

Life-sustaining treatment is any treatment that serves to prolong life without reversing the underlying medical condition. Life-sustaining treatment may include, but is not limited to, mechanical ventilation, renal dialysis, chemotherapy, antibiotics, and artificial nutrition and hydration. There is no ethical distinction between withdrawing and withholding life-sustaining treatment. A competent, adult patient may, in advance, formulate and provide a valid consent to the withholding or withdrawal of life-support systems in the event that injury or illness renders that individual incompetent to make such a decision. A patient may also appoint a surrogate decision maker in accordance with state law.

If the patient receiving life-sustaining treatment is incompetent, a surrogate decision maker should be identified. Without an advance directive that designates a proxy, the patient’s family should become the surrogate decision maker. Family includes persons with whom the patient is closely associated. In the case when there is no person closely associated with the patient, but there are persons who both care about the patient and have sufficient relevant knowledge of the patient, such persons may be appropriate surrogates. Physicians should provide all relevant medical information and explain to surrogate decision makers that decisions regarding withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment should be based on substituted judgment (what the patient would have decided) when there is evidence of the patient’s preferences and values. In making a substituted judgment, decision makers may consider the patient’s advance directive (if any); the patient’s values about life and the way it should be lived; and the patient’s attitudes towards sickness, suffering, medical procedures, and death.

If there is not adequate evidence of the incompetent patient’s preferences and values, the decision should be based on the best interests of the patient (what outcome would most likely promote the patient’s well-being). Though the surrogate’s decision for the incompetent patient should almost always be accepted by the physician, there are four situations that may require either institutional or judicial review and/or intervention in the decision-making process:

1. there is no available family member willing to be the patient’s surrogate decision maker;
2. there is a dispute among family members and there is no decision maker designated in an advance directive;
3. a health care provider believes that the family’s decision is clearly not what the patient would have decided if competent; and
4. a health care provider believes that the decision is not a decision that could reasonably be judged to be in the patient’s best interests.

When there are disputes among family members or between family and health care providers, the use of ethics committees specifically designed to facilitate sound decision-making is recommended before resorting to the courts. When a permanently unconscious patient was never competent or had not left any evidence of previous preferences or values, since there is no objective way to ascertain the best interests of the patient, the surrogate’s decision should not be challenged as long as the decision is based on the decision maker’s true concern for what would be best for the patient. Physicians have an obligation to relieve pain and suffering and to promote the dignity and autonomy of dying patients in their care. This includes providing effective palliative treatment even though it may foreseeably hasten death. Even if the patient is not terminally ill or permanently unconscious, it is not unethical to discontinue all means of life-sustaining medical treatment in accordance with a proper substituted judgment or best interests analysis.
(CEJA Progress Report, AM 2007; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

205.997 Care of Dying Patients

 

Definitions

• People are considered dying patients when they have a progressive illness that is expected to end in death and for which there is no treatment that can substantially alter the outcome. ₁
• Comfort care includes relief of pain, relief of other symptoms, attention to psychological and spiritual needs, and support for the dying patient and his/her family.

Patient Care Issues

• Physicians should respect the autonomous decision making of the dying patient.
• The dying patient and the family may benefit from other support personnel
• Dying patients may need relief of symptoms with pharmacological and non-pharmacological means.

Health Care Delivery Issues

• Dying patients should have access to comfort care at home.
• Reimbursement policies should not favor life-prolonging interventions (e.g., ventilators, dialysis, etc.) over comfort care.
• Administrative rules need to encourage and not bar comfort care for dying patients.

Education Issues

• Research should be funded to improve comfort care for dying patients.
• Health professionals need regular education in the optimum care of dying patients.
• Health professionals need to develop guidelines for care of the dying patient.
• The public needs education about the availability of comfort care as an alternative for the dying patient.

Advanced Directives

• The public needs to understand advance directives.
• Advance directives need to be adequate.
• It would be appropriate for all physicians to encourage patients to execute advance directives.

(1) The Care of Dying Patients: A Position Statement from the American Geriatrics Society JAGS 43:577-578.
(RES-12, IM 1996; Revised, BOD-1, AM 2014)

205.998 Nursing Home Resident Destination Issues

 

The Colorado Medical Society believes that nursing home residents’ rights and autonomy regarding transport to their designated hospital ought to be honored as often as possible, when specified as part of an advance medical directive.
(RES-40, AM 1993; Revised, BOD-1, AM 2014)

205.999 Patient Wishes Regarding Medical Treatment

 

The Colorado Medical Society supports and encourages frequent and forthright discussions between the patient, the family, the physician, and others providing medical care, concerning the patient’s wishes regarding the goal and extent of medical treatment. These discussions are particularly encouraged prior to occurrences which mark a potentially significant change in social or medical circumstances, such as admission to a hospital or long term care facility, the recognition of a significant health condition, the use of general anesthesia, pregnancy, as well as on a regular basis.
(RES-14, AM 1986; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)