Estimates indicate that roughly 50% of intensive care unit (ICU) patients are too ill to make decisions for themselves and are dependent on a surrogate decision maker (SDM). These decision makers—usually a patient’s family member or close loved one—use substituted judgment to make decisions they believe the patient would make for themselves. To do so effectively, SDMs must be able to understand information obtained from communicating with the ICU team; however, SDMs face several barriers. For instance, clinicians may not have ample time or appropriate training to meet an SDM’s informational needs. A lack of flexibility in SDMs’ schedules may prevent them from participating in rounds or receiving timely updates from the ICU team. Furthermore, while open visitation policies improve communication between ICU clinicians and SDMs, hospital visitation was restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such restrictions may have hampered communication between SDMs and clinicians, further compromising SDMs’ ability to understand...

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