1. Will Patient Access to Doctor's Notes Lead to Improved Care? Researchers Strive to Answer Question Through OpenNotes Pilot Program. This summer, a team of 100 primary care physicians across the country will embark on the "OpenNotes" initiative. OpenNotes will give 25,000 patients the chance to read doctors' notes on their medical records via a secure Internet portal...

Research conducted at the University of Granada revealed that emotions play an important role when health professionals have to certify that a patient is in terminal stage. To the purpose of this research, a qualitative study was undertaken with a sample of 42 participants...

The type and intensity of treatment older Americans receive for kidney failure depends on the region where they receive care rather than on evidence-based practice guidelines and patient preferences, according to a study to be published in the July 14 Journal of the American Medical Association...

Three programs that expand the reach of palliative and end-of-life care will be recognized as the 2010 recipients of the Circle of Life Award®: Celebrating Innovation in Palliative and End-of-Life Care, along with five others that will be awarded Citations of Honor. Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care in Kansas City, Mo.; Snohomish County Palliative Partnership in Everett, Wash...

A new study by scientists at the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife says the use of antibiotics to treat pneumonia in patients with terminal dementia presents a "doubled-edged" sword for health-care providers and family members, finding that antibiotics may prolong survival for these patients, but do not improve their comfort...

Researchers at Brown University have found that the length of an average Medicare-certified hospice stay in a nursing home has doubled during the last 10 years. The study, which will appear in the August issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, evaluated hospice use in U.S. nursing homes between 1999 and 2006. It found the typical treatment time has increased from 46 to 93 days...

The Hill reports that Republicans are charging the Obama administration with evading questions on Dr. Donald Berwick's ties to the health care industry. President Barack Obama used a recess appointment this week to install Berwick as head of the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid after key Republicans had raised concerns about Berwick's views. "The memo from a staffer for Sen...

A new study has found that nursing home patients participating in a program enabling them to record their wishes for end-of-life treatment are far less likely to receive unwanted hospitalization and medical interventions than are other patients...

Archives of Internal Medicine: The Quality Of Care Provided To Hospitalized Patients At The End of Life - In this study, researchers used a set of quality indicators to assess the end-of-life care and pain management received by 496 patients who died three or more days after admission at the University of California-Los Angeles Medical Center...

An AMA delegation of geriatricians, psychiatrists, general practitioners, and rehabilitation and palliative care specialists will today make a presentation to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Caring for Older Australians in Canberra...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded the City of Hope a three-year contract to educate nurses on how to provide better palliative care for Veterans with life-threatening illnesses...

Patients admitted to a teaching hospital for an end-of-life illness generally receive high-quality medical care, but there is a need for better communication about family expectations and for timely efforts to keep patients comfortable, according to a new study...

The Associated Press: "Americans increasingly are treated to death, spending more time in hospitals in their final days, trying last-ditch treatments that often buy only weeks of time, and racking up bills that have made medical care a leading cause of bankruptcies...

Beginning today, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Foundation - VITAS End of Life Education Fellowship Program welcomes six medical students who will spend the next six weeks immersing themselves in end-of-life (EOL) care issues, developing communication skills, studying the psychological, sociological, cultural and spiritual aspects of death and dying and designi...

Actor Gary Coleman's death is highlighting the importance of who makes your end-of-life decisions and is drawing attention to the fact that having a "living will" does not always guarantee that your wishes will be carried out, CNN reports...

From 1997 to 2006, the number of long-term acute care hospitals doubled, the number of Medicare patients who were transferred to a long-term acute care hospital after a critical illness tripled, and the 1 year survival for these patients was poor, according to a study in the June 9 issue of JAMA...

The Wall Street Journal: A New Jersey court is weighing if the life of Ruben Betancourt "should have been prolonged and who should have made that decision: the hospital or his family." In a lawsuit, "his daughter, Jacqueline Betancourt, contends that her father was aware of his family's presence and that the hospital had no right to terminate life support without the family's agreement...

The Wall Street Journal: A New Jersey court is weighing if the life of Ruben Betancourt "should have been prolonged and who should have made that decision: the hospital or his family." In a lawsuit, "his daughter, Jacqueline Betancourt, contends that her father was aware of his family's presence and that the hospital had no right to terminate life support without the family's agreement...

The Los Angeles Times: The health care overhaul, which "provides hundreds of billions of dollars to help states expand medical insurance for the poor," could prove critical for Mississippi, which "has the highest poverty rate in the nation and some of the sickest people, with the country's highest rate of heart disease and the second-highest rate of diabetes...

The American Cancer Society and the National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) are awarding $1.8 million in research grants to researchers at 12 institutions for studies aimed at reducing suffering for seriously ill patients and their family caregivers. The studies will be conducted over the next two years...