Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
Observational StudyTranslating Policy to Practice: An Association Between Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act Implementation and Palliative Care Consultations and Perioperative Mortality in Critical Care.
To evaluate the 30-day postoperative mortality and palliative care consultations in patients that underwent surgical procedures in the United States before and after Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (MACRA) implementation. ⋯ We did not observe an increase in postoperative mortality after POD 30 before or after MACRA implementation. However, palliative care use markedly increased after POD 30. These findings should be considered hypothesis-generating because of several confounders.
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
Vagueness in Goals-of-Care Conferences for Critically Ill Patients: Types of Hedge Language Used by Physicians.
Hedge language is a category of language that refers to words or phrases that make statements "fuzzier." We sought to understand how physicians use hedge language during goals-of-care conferences in the ICU. ⋯ Hedge language is ubiquitous in physician-surrogate communication during goals-of-care conferences in the ICU and can be used to introduce vagueness to statements in ways beyond expressing uncertainty. It is not known how hedge language impacts decision-making or clinician-surrogate interactions. This study prioritizes specific types of hedge language for future research based on their frequency and novelty.