POLST, or Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, is an approach to end-of-life care that encourages discussions between patients and their health care providers. The goal of POLST is to enable patients to choose the treatment they want or do not want, and to ensure that those preferences are honored.
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With POLST, patients discuss with their doctors their diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment alternatives, including the benefits and burdens of life-sustaining treatment, as well as the patients’ values, beliefs, and goals for care. Based on these conversations, patients (or their health care agents) and their health care providers complete a POLST form, which documents the patient’s wishes with respect to end-of-life care. The POLST form is signed by the patient’s health care provider and becomes a part of the patient’s medical record. The form serves as the patient’s standing medical orders for that patient’s particular treatment preferences in the event of a medical emergency.
On a POLST form, the patient selects (1) whether or not they wish to be given CPR; (2) what degree of medical intervention they want in an acute situation: “comfort measures only,” “limited additional interventions,” or “full treatment;” and (3) the extent to which they want artificial nutrition to be administered, if at all. The POLST form is a single page, brightly colored, and designed to be immediately recognizable and used by doctors and first responders alike.
The POLST form is signed by the patient’s doctor (or, in some states, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant) and is a medical order. A copy is kept in the patient’s medical record, so it can be easily accessed in an emergency. Some states allow the forms to be logged into an electronic registry.
The POLST Paradigm, the national organization behind POLST, advises that POLST forms are not for everyone. They are recommended for “seriously ill or frail patients for whom their physicians would not be surprised if they died in the next year.”
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Planning with POLST![]()
On a POLST form, the patient selects (1) whether or not they wish to be given CPR; (2) what degree of medical intervention they want in an acute situation: “comfort measures only,” “limited additional interventions,” or “full treatment;” and (3) the extent to which they want artificial nutrition to be administered, if at all. The POLST form is a single page, brightly colored, and designed to be immediately recognizable and used by doctors and first responders alike.
The POLST form is signed by the patient’s doctor (or, in some states, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant) and is a medical order. A copy is kept in the patient’s medical record, so it can be easily accessed in an emergency. Some states allow the forms to be logged into an electronic registry.
The POLST Paradigm, the national organization behind POLST, advises that POLST forms are not for everyone. They are recommended for “seriously ill or frail patients for whom their physicians would not be surprised if they died in the next year.”
Full Article and Source:
Planning with POLST