End of Life Care

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Your Gift to Health Care Providers, Yourself, and Your Family

A whispered secret in medicine is that resuscitative efforts do not typically save a life. In anticipation of the pandemic surge, hospitals are discussing blanket do-not-resuscitate orders for patients dying from the coronavirus. It is time to publicly and privately discuss the limits of cardiopulmonary resuscitation so patients stricken with COVID-19 can make informed end-of-life decisions and make those decisions known to their closest relatives.

Stefan Timmermans, Chloe E. Bird @ChloeBirdPhD

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Ink Tank: At RAND, Tattoos Sometimes Reflect the Research

Three RAND experts and one Pardee RAND student explain how their tattoos reflect their research on the problems Marines face, end-of-life care, migration-related issues, and the changing needs of the labor force.

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Medicare at 50: How Reforming End-of-Life Care Could Benefit It for Years to Come

As Medicare turns 50, skyrocketing health care costs and the aging of baby boomers both threaten the program's long-term viability. One solution that could go a long way would be to change the way the program handles and pays for end-of-life care.

Erin Audrey Taylor

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Let People Make Their Own End-of-Life Decisions

Major advances in health technology have helped people to live longer, but not necessarily better, lives. Medicare recently announced plans to reimburse providers for time spent counseling patients and their caregivers about the kind of care patients would want to receive near the end of their lives.

Sangeeta C. Ahluwalia @AhluwaliaPhD, Neil S. Wenger, et al.

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He Lived Cautiously, and Then Died Suddenly

After his father's unexpected death, RAND's Jeffrey Wasserman questions his instinct to always play it safe, and decides what risks in life are worth taking.

Jeffrey Wasserman

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When CPR Is the Wrong Call: Mistaking Medical Treatment for Care

If a medical treatment worked only a fraction of the time and resulted in bad outcomes more often than not, practitioners would not make this treatment the default approach. Yet that is exactly what has happened when it comes to CPR for individuals 85 years and older who suffer cardiac arrest in a community setting.

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Should We Ration End-of-Life Care?

It's remarkable how often primary care doctors never get around to talking with their patients about an advance care plan before that fateful day arrives. So my colleagues and I end up having the conversation in an ER conference room or the patient's bedside at 2 o'clock in the morning, writes Art Kellermann.

Arthur L. Kellermann

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Kellermann Debates Rationing of End of Life Care

Last week, Art Kellermann, M.D., Paul O'Neill-Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis at the RAND Corporation, participated in a debate on the complex issue of whether to ration end of life care in the United States health care system.

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Collateral Damage in the Ruckus Over Healthcare Reform

What can you choose when life restricts you to the narrow width of a hospital bed and your view is one of life's final horizon, ask Steven M. Asch, Karl Lorenz, and Diane Meier.

Karl Lorenz, Diane Meier

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Why We Know Painfully Little About Dying

Published commentary by RAND staff.

June R. Lunney, Joanne Lynn