In defiance of death: exposing the real costs of end-of-life care

Abstract

List of Illustrations Foreword by Dr. Benjamin Brown Preface Acknowledgments Chapter One: Dying in America Today Chapter Two: Roots of the Problem: The Patient Self-Determination Act, Advance Directives, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Chapter Three: Why We Need Appropriate Care Committees Chapter Four: The Three Most Typical End-of-life Populations Chapter Five: Hospitals, Escalating Costs, and End-of-Life Care Chapter Six: Nursing Homes Chapter Seven: Palliative Care and Hospice Chapter Eight: A Big Step in The Right Direction: The VA Transforms End-of-Life Care Chapter Nine: Results of My Non-Scientific, Revealing Survey Chapter Ten: The Winds of Change: Suggestions for New Directions in End-of-life Care Appendix I: The Survey Questionnaires Appendix II : Family-Physician Interactions Appendix III: The Baby K Case Appendix IV: In Support of Appropriate Care Committees Cardiologists Get Wake-up Call on Stents by Mike Mitkam, (selected text) Journal of the American Medical Association. Geographical Variations in Medicare Spending, Editorial by Kenneth I. Shine, MD, Annals of Internal Medicine. Physician-Owned Specialty Hospitals and Coronary Revascularization Utilization Too Much of a Good Thing? By Peter Cram, MD, MBA Gary E. Rosenthal, MD (Selected Text) Journal of the American Medical Association. How Physicians Can Change the Future of Health Care by Michael E. Porter, PhD, MBA Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, PhD, MEngr, MS, (Selected Text) Journal of the American Medical Association. For Further Reading: A Selection of Titles for Further Investigation Appendix V: American Medical Education American Medical Education 100 Years after the Flexner Report by Molly Cooke, M.D., David M. Irby, Ph.D., William Sullivan, Ph.D., and Kenneth M. Ludmerer, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine. Appendix VI: Pharmaceutical Company Issues Surviving Sepsis--Practice Guidelines, Mar Campaigns, and Eli Lilly by Eichacker PQ, Natanson C, Danner RL. New England Journal of Medicine. Appendix VII: The Economic Impact of Our Health Care if We Do Not Change Aging Baby Boom Generation Will Increase Demand and Burden on Federal and State Budgets, GAO Report Appendix VIII: The Truth About Americas Health Care System--Most Expensive Bad Results What Cannot Be Said on Television About Health Care by E.J. Emanuel, MD. (abstract) Journal of the American Medical Association. Appendix IX: Dying in America National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science Conference Statement on Improving End-of-Life Care, National Institutes of Health,State-of-the-Science Conference Statement Appendix X: Universal Health Care in America: TheLure of a Quick Fix Universal Health Care in America: The Lure of a Quick Fix by Kenneth A. Fisher, M.D. Glossary Index