Many providers and health systems are unaware of the opportunity to leverage payment reform to develop or align community-based resources in order to provide better care and more support to patients post-discharge under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to James Corbett, JD, MDiv, a fellow at Harvard Medical Schools Division of Medical Ethics and Vice President of Community Health and Ethics at Steward Health Care System in Boston, MA. They may not connect that payment reform presents a tremendous opportunity, he says.
It is important that the medical community understands that the cardiology and cardiac surgery communities are confronting end-of-life issues and the need to make appropriate treatment decisions based on an assessment of the likelihood that it will make a difference in a positive way, usually in a frail, sick, elderly patients life, argues Patrick OGara, MD, FACC, president-elect of the American College of Cardiology and executive medical director of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.
The relief of suffering, including suffering from untreated pain, is fundamental to the idea of ethical practice in medicine, according to Nancy Berlinger, PhD, a research scholar at The Hastings Center in Garrison, NY.