End of Life Care Strategic Plan for New Jersey

The New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute has released the "End of Life Care Strategic Plan for New Jersey." From the executive summary: "New Jersey performs poorly on end-of-life care compared with almost every other state in the nation. The statistics translate into real people treated with unnecessary and unwanted medical care at the end of their lives. Too many people who want to die at home instead die in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Too few benefit from hospice care — or benefit too late. . . . Our plan focuses on four key areas:" Technology. We need a financially sustainable statewide electronic Practitioner Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) registry so physicians and advanced practice nurses, in consultation with patients and caregivers, can document their end-of-life care wishes in a state recognized POLST form that is accessible to emergency and medical staff no matter where the person may be. We should connect Advance Directives and POLST forms to Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems, incorporate electronic reminders into the EHR to prompt providers to conduct advance care consultations with identified patients, and achieve wide-spread use of technology to identify those patients in greatest need of an end-of-life care plan. These steps are all achievable in the near term. Payment. We must increase reimbursement and expand how we reimburse for valuable end-of-life consultations to promote greater use of this service. This should be done ...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs