The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life, Third Edition
Principal Investigator: Nancy Berlinger
Funder: Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust
Start date: 2024
The Hastings Center is preparing the third edition of The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life, which will be published by Oxford University Press.
The Guidelines were first published in 1987 and were cited in Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s concurrence in Cruzan, which established the Constitutional right of patients to refuse life-sustaining interventions, including through a surrogate decision-making process.
The revised and expanded second edition, which included detailed guidance concerning decisions in the care of neonates, infants, children, and adolescents, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
The third edition will reflect recent research on contemporary practice and policy contexts, including how factors such as population aging, socioeconomic disparities, value pluralism, and trust and trustiworthiness in health care present in decision-making and care when a person is seriously ill. The new edition will also include attention to evolving issues such as the growing use of AI tools in clinical practice as they touch on decision-making and patient care. The third edition will be authored by Nancy Berlinger, Debjani Mukherjee, Susan M. Wolf, and Bruce Jenning. Their work will be supported by a consensus work group plus expert readers and consultations. The project will run from 2024 to 2026.