Advance Care Planning: Selected States' Efforts to Educate and Address Access Challenges was published on February 21, 2019 by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO report included Oregon as one of the four featured states with innovations showcasing the Oregon POLST Program and Oregon POLST Registry. Visit https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-231 to read the report.

"POLST Registration and Associated Outcomes Among Veterans With Advanced-Stage Lung Cancer" was recently published in AJHPM. The study looked at the association between registered POLST and the quality of end of life care. Within the VA, researchers found POLST submissions to the Oregon POLST Registry were low for those dying of lung cancer (22%). Of note, those with a POLST were more likely to be enrolled in hospice and less likely to die in a VA hospital. (Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2019 Jan 30, https://doi.org/10.1177/1049909118824543)

Time to Remove Feeding Tubes from POLST: GeriPal podcast with Drs. Susan Tolle and Elizabeth Eckstrom is available on SoundCloud. In a follow-up to the January JAGS article, Drs. Tolle and Eckstrom discuss in further detail why artificially administered nutrition was removed from the Oregon POLST form.