Advance Directives

Excerpt

Advance directives are legal documents that outline an individual's preferences regarding major medical decisions. These directives specify the healthcare options that an individual desires or rejects, currently and in the future. In addition, advance directives designate one or more individuals who will act as spokespersons on behalf of the patient if they become unable to communicate their preferences. There are variations in advance directive laws from state to state. Several states have implemented specific forms of advance directives, such as Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST), Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST), Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST), Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (POST), Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) Order/Clinician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (COLST), Transportable Physician Orders for Patient Preferences (TPOPP), or similar directives have been introduced. These forms condense the essential elements of an advance directive into a medical order format. To maintain brevity, the term "POLST" will be applied to encompass all the variations above in the remainder of this article.