The same is true of some of the latest doctor quality measures promoted by national organizations, including some for cancer doctors. These examine how often these doctors’ patients were given medications that could prolong their lives or alleviate their suffering before they died. In the metric-maker’s eyes, treating such patients before they die is bad, not good.

But what about my patient? How could it be that we were prudent with health care dollars because he lived, but would have been described as wasteful had he died? Doctors in an emergency room cannot know which will occur. They do not have divining rods that direct them to patients they can save and away from those they can’t.

Rather, caring for the sick means caring for people who may die. Providing care means reducing the chance they may die — not eliminating it. My supervisor noted this the moment he saw my patient.

National statistics confirm this. Seven of eight people with my patient’s diagnosis, called mesenteric vascular ischemia, leave the hospital alive. That means one in eight, or 13 percent, die. That is tragic. But the decision to care for all eight of these patients cannot be judged by the one failure alone.

Put another way, the policy conceit that spending money on patients who die is a waste overlooks the core purpose of health care — to prevent or forestall illness, disability and death among patients at risk of those outcomes.

It also overlooks a key correlation in health care. When people get sicker, they need more intensive — and expensive — health care services. But when they get sicker, they are also more likely to die. When I met my patient, I took him to the intensive care unit, the second-most-expensive place per minute in any hospital. The other place he went, twice, was the operating room — the most expensive place.

Healthy people, who are unlikely to die, are also very unlikely to find themselves in those settings. Thank goodness.