With a health proxy, also known as advance medical directives, people can empower surrogates to make medical decisions for them when they can't.
How well do these surrogates do in predicting the wishes of their patients?
New Scientist reports Can computers make life-or-death decisions?
A review of 16 studies found that surrogates got it right only 68% of the time.
Bioethicist David Wendler of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, US and colleagues wondered whether a formula could be used to better predict a patient’s wishes.
The data suggested that most people want life-saving treatment if there is at least a 1% chance that following the intervention they would have the ability to reason, remember and communicate. If there is less than a 1% chance, people generally say they would choose not to have the treatment.
“The difference between zero and 1% is all the difference in the world for someone,” says Wendler.
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Wendler says he was surprised at the formula’s accuracy. “I think it’s fascinating. At first when you hear it you think ‘That just can’t be right,’” he says.
He imagines a situation in which a surrogate is told there is only a 5% chance that an incapacitated loved one will survive a life-saving surgery following an auto accident. He says that the relative might predict that the patient would not want the intervention while the formula would predict that they did.
Wendler now wants to collect medical care preferences from people of various ethnic, religious and gender groups, which will help his team refine the formula. He believes that a computer program might one day predict patient’s wishes to an accuracy of 90%.
And the tool could take some of the pressure off of relatives who sometimes have to decide whether or not to switch off a patient’s life support machine.