The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) www.chcf.org has issued two requests related to the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST), which is a form developed to give patients more control over their end-of-life care.
POLST is intended to move with a patient as part of the medical chart and to be honored wherever the patient receives care. Accessing the same form across various providers and record systems and sometimes under emergency circumstances has proven to be difficult for many providers in California.
Several years ago, Oregon’s POLST program overcame this challenge by creating a statewide registry to ensure that emergency responders and other medical professionals would have immediate access to patient POLST records to inform care.
CHCF is therefore interested in learning about the technical, infrastructure and cost requirements for developing a system similar to Oregon’s program then setting up a pilot POLST registry in a single California community.
To move the project along, CHCF has issued two requests. CHCF issued the first request, titled “Request for Letters of Interest: Pilot Community” www.chcf.org/rfps/2014/rfi-polst-pilot-community looking for California communities to get acute care hospitals, medical groups, nursing homes, hospices, health plans, and emergency medical services together to test a registry platform.
This platform would make POLST records available to authorized providers telephonically, electronically, or both. The ideal provider community would be able to modify clinical workflows to incorporate the pilot POLST registry, integrate the POLST form into EHR systems, and explore a sustainable financing model. Interested communities need to respond by November 14, 2014.
The second request titled “Request for Information: Technology Platform” www.chcf.org/rfps/2014/rfi-polst-pilot-technology seeks information from vendors with experience with technology and operational and support services necessary to establish a POLST registry as well as provide estimates on corresponding costs.
The ideal technical solution would receive the POLST information for patients from varied sources, communicate POLST records to emergency responders and other medical professionals, and maintain data accuracy by interfacing with medical and public health information. Interested vendors need to respond by October 31, 2014.