Article On Patient’s End Of Life Treatment Preferences

Robert B. Wolf, Marilyn J. Maag, & Keith Bradoc Gallant recently published an article entitled, The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Coming Soon to a Health Care Community Near You, 40 Am. Coll. of Trust and Estates L. J. 57-150 (2015). Provided below is an abstract of the article:

Advance health care directives, including durable health care powers of attorney and living wills, are part of the standard bill of fare for estate planners, along with durable financial powers of attorney, wills and trusts.  This article discusses an end-of-life planning tool that is less well known in the estate-planning community – a physician order designed to elicit and record a patient’s end of life treatment preferences, referred to in some jurisdictions (and in this article) as POLST. The wide acceptance and spread of the POLST has gone largely unnoticed by estate and trust and elder law practitioners, despite its purpose to implement their clients’ care wishes when the client is dying or near death, traditionally a focal point of their professional efforts.  This article is intended to remedy that lack of awareness.