Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and ICU Admission Near the End of Life

To the Editor Dr Lee and colleagues found that 38% of patients with treatment-limiting Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) received intensive care that was discordant with the POLST. In their Editorial, Drs Truog and Fried suggested reasons for this discordance, including differing health status between time of POLST completion and implementation, and the inability of the form to reflect changes in preferences. We offer a third explanation that may account for the discordant care found in the study: that the POLST form may not be completed correctly at the time of recording.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research