Journal of palliative medicine
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Medical care of patients with life limiting illness remains fraught with serious deficiencies, including inadequate advance care planning, delayed hospice referral, and continued delivery of aggressive treatment that is overtly counter to patients' preferences. ⋯ We argue that these barriers must be overcome before deficiencies in end-of-life care can be fully ameliorated.
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Clinical guidelines are systematically developed statements that influence medical practice, education, and funding. Guidelines represent the consensus of leaders, often based on systematic reviews of the literature, regarding the "state of the art." ⋯ Current national guidelines on nine chronic, life-limiting illnesses offer little guidance in end-of-life care issues despite a recent increase in attention to this aspect of medical care.