About Pia Christensen
Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.
The Associated Press’ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar explains the proposed counseling about end-of-life care that’s contained in the health care reform legislation. In doing so, he takes the advice of The Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz, who says “there is a point where the media should say a politician is wrong, and this is the point.”
Yahoo! News blogger Lili Ladaga points readers to a number of sources to get the facts on health care reform, noting that facts are “getting lost in the hubbub over health care.”
Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.
Patients have been encouraged to complete advance directives for health care decisions for about 20 years in northern California. At most outpatient clinics, patients are asked once annually if they have completed an advance directive. If yes, they were asked to make a copy which could be made part of their medical chart. They were also encouraged to provide a copy to their primary MD for their office chart. If no, they were given a brochure describing the importance and process of completing a directive. They might have been required to complete one prior to major surgery also. The directive is related to end-of-life care only because it allows the patient to decide what care s/he might want if they, the patient, are unable to make such a decision, i.e. coma, head trauma, medication reaction, etc. Patients can change their directives at any time. It is incomprehensible how this fact became misinterpreted as a “death panel”.