I have written about the problems families have when it comes to making decisions about the care of family members who are very sick. As Dr. Mirarchi says, there are copies of various end of life documents here and there in electronic medical records, but doctor responsible for a patient’s care in the hospital likely doesn’t know the patient, much less what the patient has discussed with a primary care physician about what they want.
So you have a stranger who’s seeing you, taking care of you as an ER doctor, you have a stranger who’s admitting you to a hospital, you have a stranger surgeon who’s taking care of you. So all of a sudden, nobody has established relationships with people, so no one really knows what the patient’s wishes are.
Dr. Mirarchi’s MIDEO cell phone application allows you to clearly specify what you want in a readily available format that can be watched by the physicians. Your wishes in your own words, not the legalese of the paper documents.
A transcript of Dr. Mirarchi’s interview is available.
