This book is intended to provide physicians a strong theoretical and conceptual framework upon which to rely when life care planning, as well as a common language to help physician life care planners articulate, compartmentalize, and contextualize key life care planning concepts.In addition, the book is intended to serve as an ongoing, subject-specific resource to aid physicians in producing comprehensive, well-formulated life care plans.
For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.
Identifies clinical, ethical, and public policy challenges in end-of- life care and offers recommendations on how to better address these problems. Part I focuses on building relationships among doctors, patients, and families, cultural differences in attitudes towards palliative care, and what to do when the patient cannot speak for himself. Part II presents practical approaches to common problems, illustrated with clinical cases in management of pain, depression, and delirium. Part III deals with legal, financial, and quality issues. Snyder teaches bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics; Quill teaches in the Program for Biopsychosocial Studies at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. c. Book News Inc.
From Ira Byock, prominent palliative care physician and expert in end of life decisions, a lesson in Dying Well. Nobody should have to die in pain. Nobody should have to die alone. This is Ira Byock's dream, and he is dedicating his life to making it come true. Dying Well brings us to the homes and bedsides of families with whom Dr. Byock has worked, telling stories of love and reconciliation in the face of tragedy, pain, medical drama, and conflict. Through the true stories of patients, he shows us that a lot of important emotional work can be accomplished in the final months, weeks, and even days of life. It is a companion for families, showing them how to deal with doctors, how to talk to loved ones—and how to make the end of life as meaningful and enriching as the beginning. Ira Byock is also the author of The Best Care Possible: A Physician's Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life.
An important book from a noted medical doctor, this book describes exactly what natural health products work for specific diseases. A scientifically trained medical doctor, Dr. Howerstein, spans the gap between medical science and natural health products.
Life Care Planning and Case Management Handbook, Second Edition brings together the many concepts, beliefs, and procedures regarding life care plans into one state-of-the-art publication. This second edition of a bestseller is focused on prioritizing and managing the spectrum of services for people with serious medical problems and their families.
Legal Nurse Consulting Principles and Practices, Fourth Edition, provides foundational knowledge on the specialty nursing practice of legal nurse consulting. Legal nurse consulting is defined, and essential information about the practice is discussed (history, certification, scope and standards of practice, and ethical and liability considerations). The essentials of the law and medical records are explored. Analysis of the various types of legal cases on which legal nurse consultants work is provided, as are other practice areas for legal nurse consultants. The various roles and skills of legal nurse consultants are explored, and the textbook concludes with discussion of the ways in which legal cases are adjudicated. This volume allows nurses to bridge the gap from their clinical experience to the unfamiliar territory of the legal world, with practical advice on topics including tactics for being cross-examined in the courtroom and investigative and analytical techniques for medical records. Individual chapters by subject-matter experts focus on the full range of legal, medical, and business issues that new or experienced legal nurse consultants and nurse experts will encounter in their work. A nuanced look at the realities and complexities of toxic torts, medical malpractice cases, civil rights in correctional healthcare, ERISA and HMO litigation, and other practice areas is offered. Suitable for experienced nurses studying for certification as legal nurse consultants, and for expert witnesses, practitioners seeking to expand their current legal nurse roles, and other healthcare and legal practitioners.
After years of school and maybe even after some years of practice, you are ready to do it on your own. Running a profitable business takes more than just being a great doctor. Start Your Own Medical Practice provides you with the knowledge to be both a great doctor and a successful business owner. Whether you are looking to open a single practice office or wanting to go into partnership with other colleagues, picking the right location, hiring the right support staff and taking care of all the finances are not easy tasks. With help from Start Your Own Medical Practice, you can be sure you are making the best decisions for success. Don't let a wrong choice slow down your progress. Find advice to: --Create a Business Plan --Manage the Office --Raise Capital --Bill Your Patients --Market Your Practice --Build a Patient Base --Prevent Malpractice Suits --Keep an Eye on the Goal With checklists, sample letters and doctor's office forms, Start Your Own Medical Practice teaches you all the things they didn't in medical school and gives you the confidence to go out and do it on your own.
Life care planning is an advanced collaborative case management specialty practice focused on assessing, evaluating, coordinating, consulting, planning for, and monitoring necessary services for individuals with complex medical care needs over their lifetime. This handbook provides a comprehensive resource for all people involved with catastrophic impairments and chronic medical care case management. The Life Care Planning and Case Management Handbook, Fourth Edition, begins by defining the roles played by each of the key team members working with the life care planner. It provides planners with insights critical to successful interactions with medical and health care–related professionals as well as the team members they are most likely to encounter as they work to build an accurate and reliable life care plan. Next, the text offers up-to-date information on the medical conditions most frequently encountered by the life care planner. The contributors, who are recognized experts in their disciplines, also address issues in forensic settings, ethics, standards, research, and credentials. The fourth edition includes numerous chapters on general issues, as well as updated standards of practice from the International Academy of Life Care Planners (IALCP), Life Care Planning Consensus Statements, and valuable step-by-step charts and checklists. Completely updated and expanded, this revised handbook now includes new chapters on multicultural considerations in life care planning, admissibility of life care plans in U.S. courts, and Canadian life care planning practice. Additionally, infused in other chapters, is new information on medical coding and costing for life care planners, life care planning in non-litigated contexts, as well as research and education within life care planning.
"There is an unspoken dark side of American medicine--keeping patients alive at all costs. Two thirds of Americans die in healthcare institutions tethered to machines and tubes, even though research indicates that most prefer to die at home in comfort, surrounded by loved ones. The question How do you want to live? must be posed to the seriously ill because they deserve to choose. If doctors explain options--including the choice to forego countless medical interventions that are often of little benefit--then patients can tell doctors how they wish to spend the remainder of their lives. A doctor's heroic efforts to prolong a life can instead prolong that patient's death, and these traumatic measures also bankrupt the healthcare system. One third of the Medicare budget is spent on the last six months of life, often on technological interventions that are not helpful and inflict more suffering. Through the stories of six patients and six very different end-of-life experiences, Volandes explores the trajectory of events and treatments that occur with and without this essential conversation. He argues for a radical re-envisioning of the patient-doctor relationship--including videos to spark discussions--and offers ways for patients and their families to talk about this difficult issue to ensure that patients will be at the center and in charge of their medical care"--Provided by publisher.
