Financial stress after critical illness: an unintended consequence of high-intensity care

Excerpt

For patients with chronic, life-limiting illness, deterioration in health can result in admission to the ICU, with the goal of restoration of health back to or near their prior quality of life. However, such patients may also receive costly, high-intensity care that they find burdensome and inconsistent with their values and goals [1]. Further, this high-intensity care may be ineffective [2], and place unnecessary psychological and physical burden on patients and their family [3]. For patients who survive, they may be at risk for experiencing an outcome that they consider to be worse than death, such as permanently needing help with activities of daily living like toileting or bathing [4]. These unfortunate realities raise the question of whether there is an important opportunity to apply the principle of “less is more” in the care of some patients with chronic, life-limiting illness. …