AHRQ-Sponsored/Funded Research Projects on End-of-Life Care

Quality-of-Life Factors in Geriatric Medicine Decisions, 1984-86, Grant No. HS05303, University of Washington: Compared similarities and differences among elderly patients, spouses, and physicians regarding their quality-of-life values.

Effects of Advance Directives on Medical Care, 1987-91, Grant No. HS05617, University of California, San Diego: Examined the effect of advance directives on the costs of health care, satisfaction with health care, and well-being among patients with life-threatening illnesses.

Living Wills: For Primary Care, AIDS, and Cancer Patients, 1989-91, Grant No. HS06120, Massachusetts General Hospital: Studied use of living wills, stability of preferences, and discussions between physicians and ambulatory patients.

Long-term Stability of Treatment Preferences, 1989-95, Grant No. HS06343, University of Washington: Determined the long-term stability and predictive validity of preferences for life-sustaining treatment and health states that patients consider worse than death.

Making Choices and Allocating Resources Near Life's End, 1990-95, Grant No. HS06655, University of North Carolina: Explored treatment preferences and congruency among elderly patients with severe heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.

Advance Directives—Effectiveness of Mandatory Notice, 1991-94, Grant No. HS07075, Dartmouth College: Investigated the impact of the Patient Self-Determination Act, use of advance directives, and treatment preferences of severely ill patients.

Advance Directives and Communication in Medical Care, 1991-96, Grant No. HS06912, University of California, San Diego: Studied the effects of advance directives on personal autonomy, cost of health care, well-being, and patient-physician communication among patients with life-threatening illness.

Nursing Home Residents' Treatment Preferences, 1992-95, Grant No. HS06815, University of Pennsylvania: Examined the use of advance directives in nursing homes to ascertain whether there were institutional and/or individual factors associated with treatment preferences.

Advance Directive Discussions With Elderly Outpatients, 1993-95, Grant No. HS07660, Kent State University: Analyzed the impact of physician-initiated discussions regarding advance directives and physicians' ability to predict treatment preferences of their elderly outpatients.

Ethnicity and Attitudes Toward Advance Care Directives, 1993-96, Grant No. HS07001, University of Southern California: Explored attitudes toward medical technology, withholding and withdrawing treatment, and advance care documents among different ethnic groups.

Advance Directives, Proxies, and Electronic Medical Records, 1993-97, Grant No. HS07632, Indiana University: Studied the ability to encourage discussions about advance directives and documentation of patient treatment preferences through a computer system.

Systematic Application of a Health Care Directive, 1994-98, Grant No. HS07878, McMaster University: Examined the effects of the systematic application of the Let Me Decide directive on patient and family satisfaction with health care, health care use, and health care costs among nursing home residents.

Resource Use in Seriously Ill Medicare Patients, 1995-98, Grant Nos. HS08158/HS09129, Dartmouth College: Investigated Medicare beneficiaries' utilization of services, the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preference for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment (SUPPORT) intervention to improve decisionmaking, and implementation of the Patient Self-Determination Act.

Testing the Effectiveness of Advance Medical Directives, 1995-2001, Grant No. HS08180, Kent State University: Compared different methods of collecting advance directive information to improve surrogates' ability to predict patient preferences for life-sustaining treatment and measured stability of patient treatment preferences over time.

Medical Decisions and Advance Care Planning in the Nursing Home, 1998-2000, Grant. No. HS09833, Hebrew Home of Greater Washington: Studied factors influencing end-of-life medical decisions and use of advance directives among nursing home residents.

A Detailed Profile of End-of-Life Care in Medicare, 1999-2001, Grant No. HS10561, RAND Corporation: Investigated health care use among Medicare beneficiaries at the end of life.

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