Oregon end-of-life forms go electronic

Oregon Health and Science University officials say the digital registry ensures faster access to information about whether a patient wants life-sustaining treatment at the end of life.

(Credit: Oregon Health and Science University)

Officials at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) announced Tuesday that the state's Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) registry is going digital on or near December 1.

Until now, as a POLST program coordinator explained to me, someone with chronic or terminal illness has had the option to go to a doctor's office and fill out a POLST form in the presence of a doctor or nurse, and then keep the document at home where, ideally, emergency medical personnel could find it (such as the refrigerator). If the paper is lost, determining the wishes of the patient can be challenging, to say the least.

Now, a patient has the option to check (or leave blank) a box that directs that person's end-of-life directives into a private digital database, thereby enabling emergency medical personnel to access a patient's electronic POLST file in the event that the original paperwork is lost.

This is the first electronic database of its kind in the country, says Dr. Susan Tolle, director of OHSU's Center for Ethics in Health Care. West Virginia, she says, recently received a grant to create the same type of database, and some 30 states are developing similar ones as well:

This model is the next step in getting vital information not for healthy people, but people with advanced frailty...who wish to have their values translated into orders to have or to limit treatment.

[MadLyb]

Bravo for Oregon.

It's time for individuals...and government...to stop pushing their mores on other people.

If I want to leave this planet in dignity rather spend years hooked up on some machine, that should be my choice and my choice only and I harm NO ONE ELSE with my decision.

So, once again, bravo to Oregon for working to insure my decisions are honored.

[EvanSei]

I know they could make an iPhone app. I can see the commercial now....suffering and want to end your life? There is an app for that!

[gerrrg]

EOL refers to how to treat someone that is incapacitated and unable to inform others of how they would like to be treated: naturally die or kept on machines, not a suicide request.

[EvanSei]

good job oregon pro-choice is the right choice!

[ecotopian--2008]

I have often wondered how many people hooked up to machines, & unable to communicate their wishes, are undergoing various shades of prolonged torture. It is a real gray area. No pun intended. Myself, I like to think I'd prefer to die naturally, but who knows how that might change when things get bad. I definitely support Oregon's interest in honoring individual preferences, because I believe that taking extreme measures to prolong life may greatly increase suffering, and waste money that could be better spent in other ways.

[aka_tripleB]

I think this is good, but I am still a little uncomfortable with electronic DO-NOT-RESUSCITATE forms. I'd think I would prefer that the official order be paper with a digital back-up. I'm just not that trusting people and fear that they would alter this without my knowledge.