[Development of a tool for withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in the emergency room].

Objectives: Active treatment withholding and withdrawing decisions in the emergency room (ER) must be taken collegially according to ethical and juridical statements. Specific tools can support this process and our main goal was to create and validate such a tool.

Method: We created a first version of a tool to help for treatment withholding and withdrawing decisions inspired by similar documents from literature.

[Audit: medical record documentation among advanced cancer patients].

Medical record documentation of cancer inpatients is a core component of continuity of care. The main goal of the study was an assessment of medical record documentation in a palliative care unit (PCU) using a targeted clinical audit based on deceased inpatients' charts. Stage 1 (2010): a clinical audit of medical record documentation assessed by a list of items (diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, power of attorney directive, advance directives).

[Palliative care for patients with heart failure].

Purpose: Heart failure is a common disease and its progression to end-stage heart failure is responsible of high mortality. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the access to integrated palliative care to the usual management, 6 months prior to their death, and especially during the last hospitalization.

Patients And Methods: A retrospective study was performed in patients who died of heart failure in 2009 in two hospitals.