Nearly half of California nursing home residents complete end-of-life care orders

UCLA-led research finds broad acceptance of written end-of-life care orders among California nursing home residents, with nearly half completing a Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, or POLST, form in 2011. The study, published online in the peer-reviewed Journal of General Internal Medicine, also found no difference in completion of the form by race or ethnicity, suggesting wide acceptance of these orders among California’s highly diverse population. The researchers did, however, identify a few areas where the use of the forms in nursing homes could be improved.            The POLST document records a patient’s end-of-life care preferences regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation, aggressiveness of medical interventions and artificial nutrition. Printed on bright pink paper, and signed by the patient as well as a doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant, the form is designed to travel with a patient to different care settings, such as hospitals, nursing homes or doctor’s offices. It was enacted for use in California through AB 3000 legislation in 2009. Completion of the order by the individual is voluntary. “POLST is an especially useful tool for nursing home residents because they often experience transitions from the nursing home to the hospital or emergency department and back again,” said Dr. Lee Jennings, assistant professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the study’...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news