JAMA internal medicine
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JAMA internal medicine · Apr 2015
Multicenter StudyBarriers to goals of care discussions with seriously ill hospitalized patients and their families: a multicenter survey of clinicians.
Seriously ill hospitalized patients have identified communication and decision making about goals of care as high priorities for quality improvement in end-of-life care. Interventions to improve care are more likely to succeed if tailored to existing barriers. ⋯ Hospital-based clinicians perceive family member-related and patient-related factors as the most important barriers to goals of care discussions. All health care professionals were viewed as playing important roles in addressing goals of care. These findings can inform the design of future interventions to improve communication and decision making about goals of care.