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Sumeeta Varma, BS; David Wendler, PhD

Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(16):1711-1715.

Patients who lose decision-making capacity and lack advance directives and next of kin present a quandary for physicians. Current mechanisms for making treatment decisions for these patients rely on decision makers, such as courts, public guardians, committees, and physicians, who typically do not have sufficient knowledge to predict the patients' preferences. Thus, these mechanisms likely yield decisions that are inconsistent with patients' treatment preferences in many cases. A population-based treatment indicator is a computer-based tool that predicts which treatment a given patient would prefer based on the treatment preferences of similar patients in similar situations. A recent analysis suggests that a population-based treatment indicator could predict patient preferences as accurately as patient-appointed surrogates and next of kin. This analysis suggests that a population-based treatment indicator may provide a mechanism to respect the treatment preferences of patients without surrogates and ensure that their treatment preferences are respected as much as the preferences of patients who have surrogates. Collection of data on patients' treatment preferences, especially those without surrogates, incorporation of these data into a treatment indicator, and exploration of ways to implement this approach for patients without surrogates are called for.

Author Affiliations: Department of Bioethics, NIH Clinical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

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