September 2019 Oregon POLST Newsletter

Dr. Susan Tolle’s Reply to Artificial Nutrition Belongs on POLST provides an update on the first six months of experience with the 2019 Oregon POLST form. Statewide adoption has occurred at a rapid pace. By the final week of June, 81% of forms submitted to the registry were the 2019 version. In the January 2019 JAGS article, It is Time to Remove Feeding Tubes From POLST Forms; Drs. Tolle and Eckstrom discuss in further detail why artificially administered nutrition was removed from the Oregon POLST form.

Dana Zive and colleagues examined multiple data sets in elders entering the trauma system after a fall in an article entitled, Injured Older Adults Transported by Emergency Medical Services: One Year Outcomes by POLST Status. Those with POLST forms with orders for CMO had a 50% mortality at one year.
Prehospital Emergency Care https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2019.1615154

Dr. Ballou and colleagues recently published, Elderly Patients Presenting to a Level I Trauma Center with Physician Orders for a Life-Sustaining Treatment Form: A Propensity-Matched Analysis. OHSU developed a protocol to consistently review POLST forms of 85-year old trauma patients subsequently with ground-level falls to assure that their POLST forms are identified. The OHSU protocol has been modified to locate POLST forms on all trauma patients 80 and older and is being seen as a national model.
J Trauma Acute Care Surg. doi: 10.1097/TA.0000000000002321

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