Almost a year ago, I wrote a column at the Upshot on how doing more for patients often does no good. One of the examples I used was advanced life support (ALS) versus basic life support (BLS). The basis for my piece was a recent study that showed that patients with a cardiac arrest who had received ALS before coming to the hospital were less likely to survive to discharge than patients who received BLS. They were also less likely to survive to 90 days after discharge, and they had worse neurological outcomes.
More data have come out from even better studies. Yet many don’t want to change their minds. Why? What should we do? All this and more… go read!
