ENHANCE PALLIATIVE

The intensive care unit (ICU) will remain an important setting for end-of-life care because of the severity of illness of patients in the ICU and because many patients with chronic, life-limiting diseases and their families will opt for a trial of intensive care. ICUs are places where the sickest of patients receive the most technologically sophisticated care that medicine can offer. Because these units care for people at the brink of death, they are also places where patients, families, and health care professionals struggle with decisions about the appropriateness of aggressive care. (Hamric & Blackhall