The Illusion of End‐of‐Life Resource Savings with Advance Directives

OBJECTIVE: Would increasing the documentation of advance directives (ADs) lead to a reduction in resource utilization? We examined this question by conducting three secondary analyses: (1) we tested for a change in resource use among those who died in the hospital at a time before and after an intervention that increased the documentation of ADs in the medical record; (2) we replicated analyses of published studies that reported an association of chart documentation of ADs and hospital resource use; and (3) we examined whether a potential explanation of the observed association is biased documentation of ADs among patients who have completed an AD.

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