Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Dec;39(16):3330-3332.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-024-09010-3. Epub 2024 Aug 26.

Medical Detention of Incapacitated Patients

Mark W Newman  1 , Carolyn S Keller  2
Affiliations
Review

Medical Detention of Incapacitated Patients

Mark W Newman et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2024 Dec.

Abstract

Inpatients with impaired decision-making capacity may attempt to leave the hospital prematurely. When no surrogate decision-maker is available, clinical teams often lack a legal basis to keep these patients. Provisions for emergency treatment and involuntary psychiatric holds are unsuitable and insufficient to address the problem. Clinicians need explicit legal authority to temporarily detain and treat incapacitated and unrepresented patients. Physician and hospital associations should lobby state legislatures to create new statutes for medical incapacity modeled after mental health laws.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations:. Conflict of Interest:: The authors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.

References

    1. Perni S. AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(6):533-536. 10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.6.fred1-1706.
    1. Southern WN, Nahvi S, Arnsten JH. Increased risk of mortality and readmission among patients discharged against medical advice. Am J Med, 125.6(2012): 594-602. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tan SY, Feng JY, Joyce C, Fisher J, Mostaghimi A. Association of hospital discharge against medical advice with readmission and in-hospital mortality. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(6): e206009-e206009. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alfandre D. Reconsidering against medical advice discharges: embracing patient-centeredness to promote high quality care and a renewed research agenda. J Gen Intern Med, 28(2013): 1657-1662. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kersten C. The doctor as jailer: medical detention of non-psychiatric patients. J Law Biosci. 2019;6(1):310-316. 10.1093/jlb/lsz008. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources