ED Docs Can Identify Patients Likely to Die Within 1 Month

September 16, 2019

(Medscape) – Emergency department (ED) physicians who answered the question “Would you be surprised if your patient died in the next 1 month?” could identify patients over age 65 years who indeed died within a month, according to results of a study published online September 13 in JAMA Network Open. A palliative care plan can ease the end of life for patients and cut costs, but identifying which patients are in the last months of their lives is not an exact science. One strategy is for a provider to answer the “surprise question:” “Would you be surprised if your patient died in the next 1 month?”