Law, medicine, and the terminally ill: humanizing the approach to risk management

In advising health care providers about care of the terminally ill in hospitals, risk managers generally take a legally conservative, narrow, risk avoidance approach. This orientation is generally unnecessary legally, since the legal risks in this context are exaggerated, and often lead to suboptimum medical treatment. A more humanistic approach to risk management should be taken where the terminally ill are involved.