No. Not in the vast majority of cases, at any rate. This is the troubling conclusion in 2 recent studies. Both were in Emergency Departments, both using electronic health records (EHR). One study looked solely at patients over 65 — probably a sizeable portion of your clients. It found that: Most patients who said they’d completed an advance directive or other advance care planning (ACP) document had no advance directive available in the emergency department. In fact: Only 13% … [Read more...] about Will an ER Doctor Find Your Client’s Advance Directive?
EHR
Computerized Records Don’t Put Advance Directives in Doctors’ Hands
It’s still a problem for your clients: Electronic hospital records (EHRS) won’t make clients’ advance directives readily available in many cases. A recent news article in USA Today profiles this problem. And a highly respected hospital consulting organization summed up the article this way: Looking for a patient’s end-of-life wishes? In many EHRs, it’s ‘file not found.’ How can this be? After all, one purpose of having medical records in electronic form is to make information easier to … [Read more...] about Computerized Records Don’t Put Advance Directives in Doctors’ Hands
