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Fifteen to 25 percent of adults complete advance directives (ADs), usually after a serious illness or hospitalization. Initiatives encouraging healthy patients to complete ADs have had moderate success. These initiatives have included patient educational materials as well as model discussions and computerized reminders for doctors. Wissow and colleagues performed a physician-based intervention and studied the rate of new AD filings by older patients following intervention.
The prospective, quasi-experimental study included patients older than 65 years who were scheduled for routine health maintenance at five urban and suburban intervention...