Strengths And Weaknesses Of Patient Self Determination

The Patient Self-Determination Act is a federal law that allows all individuals to make choices regarding their life and death. Each state has some different regulations on this, but generally, individuals can create a living will so their health will be handled the way they want if they are unable to verbalized or come to a decision when approaching death. He or she could also have a durable power of attorney who the individual entrusts to make health decisions in his or her best interest. Examples of such decisions can be whether to have artificial nutrition and hydration and using respirators/ventilators when that is the only way to keep an individual alive. This Act was passed in 1990 so health care organizations across each state would
In terms of strengths, it first gives the patient autonomy and a feeling of having a choice of his or her health care. In theory, advance directives should be followed completely, and an individual’s wishes should be honored. Second, they help alleviate family disagreements when trying to come up with the best treatment plan, or if they are too emotional to make an appropriate decision, since the patient’s wishes are already written out. There is also a greater chance of aging in place and dying at home instead of a hospital or institution, greater use of hospice and/or palliative care, and reduced use of ventilators or other machines to artificially keep a person alive. There are also weaknesses to this. First, many people are uneducated about advance care planning and have not been exposed to it during their younger or healthier years. Next, sometimes, health care facilities are not aware that an individual has an advance directive or it is too vague, so it is not followed and health decisions may not be made in the way the individual would want. Thirdly, doctors may not want to follow the directive if there is a fear of getting into trouble (e.g. not performing
First, in order to save money, hospice providers encourage patients to leave hospice when they require hospitalization and then reenroll once they leave the hospital. However, it is difficult to switch Medicare status and there is lots of paperwork to fill out. Next, individuals should be encouraged to choose not-for-profit hospice services. For-profit ones often keep people on services for a very short amount of time or discharge them after 180 days to save money. The author also had no choice in the prescription delivery service, which was done every 2 weeks in case the person dies so medication is not wasted. However, it took more time for her to have to reorder the medications more frequently. Then, she was sent tons of personal care supplies, which she was initially very pleasantly surprised with, but the quality was poor in order to save money. Jim wanted to switch back to his old supplies, so these had to be paid for out-of-pocket. This was an example of not offering the most personalized care and just wanted to have the cheapest cost. If a treatment, medication, or anything else that may help the patient is too expensive, it is typically not covered and they are encouraged to leave hospice temporarily to pursue