ESCAMBIA COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY
President’s Message
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER2011 Volume 41, No. 5
POLST and New Paradigm for End-of-Life Care by Michelle Brandhorst, MD
Upcoming Events October 11, 2011
General Membership Meeting 5:30 PM
Speaker: Daniel J. Van Durme, MD Sponsor: MAG Mutual Location: Heritage Hall
November 8, 2011
General Membership Meeting 5:30PM
Speaker: Paul McLeod, MD Sponsor: Sacred Heart Health Systems Location: Angus Restaurant
RSVP: 478-0706
ECMSinfo@bellsouth.net Founded in 1873
Ethical dilemmas in healthcare are always challenging in our advanced technological society. The initiatives encompassing Physician Orders for LifeSustaining Treatment (POLST) center around creating a replacement or substitution for the current Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form. The termination of medical treatment has been evolving since 1976, with the case of Karen Ann Quilan vs. New Jersey. The continued evolution of palliative care in 1991 gave us the Patient Self-Determination Act, which mandates hospitals to ensure adherence to a patients rights to create a personal health care decision. In 1996, additional research found the demand for change in end-of life care, creating the POLST order through the Center for Ethics in Health Care at the Oregon Health & Science University. By 2004 POLST was fully adopted by ten states as well as being partially implemented in several others. The issues that served as an impetus to the POLST movement can be seen on daily by physicians and nurses who care for patients with a life limiting diagnoses. First, there is the reluctance or discomfort of many physicians and some patients to discuss the reality that a patient may soon die. Because of this, patients often receive medical treatment that they would not want, if the true severity of their illness was known to them and their family. Second, the living will and DNR forms or either too generic or too restrictive. In spite of the best intentions, the living will form conveys little information regarding the specific treatment decisions that present in the course of treating potentially life limiting illnesses. Family members are therefore often left to make painful decisions as they try to extrapolate from the verbiage on this form to specifics such as peg tubes, tpn, or ICU drips. The DNR form is foreboding and often signed by a patient or family members in a patients last days of life. Third, documented patient wishes and instructions never seem to be there when they are needed. The POLST form is a single page that documents a conversation between a physician and patient regarding life sustaining treatment after the diagnosis of a life limiting condition. Examples of the brightly colored POLST form as well as further in-
formation are available at www.ohsu.edu/polst/ index.htm. The form contains sections that collectivly not only cover CPR preference but Dr. Michelle Brandhorst also addresses medical interventions such as antibiotics, iv fluids, feeding tubes and preferences regarding being transported to a hospital. It is an order form and must be signed by a physician. It is therefore placed in the orders section of a chart and transferable from home/ extended care facility to hospital and back. Most importantly however the POLST form serves as a guideline for having meaningful discussions regarding care parameters and hopefully encourages this conversation. The initiative to implement POLST is being lead by Marshall B. Kapp, J.D., M.P.H who is the Director, Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine & Law at Florida State University College of Medicine. Mr. Kapp convened a group of interested parties from around the state to forward the move forward with bring POLST to Florida. POLST has been endorsed by The Florida Medical Association, Florida Academy of Family Practice, Florida Bar Association, AARP as well other organizations. Misguided rhetoric regarding “Death Panels” continues to make progress difficult as I was reminded during a recent discussion regarding POLST I had with Dr. Frank Farmer our current Florida State Surgeon General. Previous efforts to implement POLST bogged down in details such as where to electronically store POLST documents. Acceptance of medical record repositories such as PORTAL may solve this perceived problem and we can then move forward with the more important work of adopting the POLST paradigm. I hope this article will spur your interest in learning about POLST at www.ohsu.edu/polst/index. htm. I also hope that you will support local efforts. Without physician support this effort to improve care that is consistent with patient wishes will not succeed. The POLST paradigm is an opportunity to provide effective medical care and to preserve the patient-physician relationship.