Editorial: Improving Guardianship Processes for Unrepresented Adult Patients Who Lack Decisional Capacity: An Ethical and Institutional Imperative

摘要

Current approaches to clinical decision making for unrepresented adult patients who lack decisional capacity are rife with potential ethical, legal, and institutional pitfalls. Seemingly universal inefficiencies and delays in guardianship petitions compound clinical problems, imperil development of goal-oriented plans of care, occasion invasive procedures or end-of-life decisions that lack informed consent and institutional oversight, increase medically unnecessary lengths of stay (and their attendant nosocomial risks), and impede timely and safe patient discharge.