The key findings were as follows:
- Nearly half of patients (47%) required at least some surrogate involvement in major medical decisions. About half of the time, the surrogate made all of the decisions. The other half of the time, the surrogate and patient jointly made the decisions.
- Surrogate decision making is not just for ICUs! As expected, surrogate decision making was particularly common in the ICU, but even on the medical wards, surrogates were involved in over 40% of major decisions.
- Surrogate decision making is not just about code status! Surrogates were instrumental in many decisions that had profound short and long term consequences for the patient's care. 49% of surrogates participated in decisions about procedures about operations and 47% of surrogates helped make decisions about discharge planning.