Health care decisions: life-sustaining treatment.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific information about what happens if a POLST form is lost or damaged, nor does it specify how patients without access to electronic signatures will be affected. Additionally, there are no details on handling forms lacking the required date.

Health Care Decisions: Life-Sustaining Treatment

This law updates the rules for forms that tell doctors what life-saving treatments a patient wants or doesn't want, making it easier to use these forms and ensuring they work across different states.

What This Bill Does

• Changes the name of 'Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment' (POLST) to 'Portable Orders Listing Scope of Treatment'.
• Allows health care agents, conservators, or surrogates to sign life-sustaining treatment forms along with doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants.
• Specifies that signing these forms is voluntary and hospitals cannot refuse admission if someone doesn't have a POLST form.
• Permits electronic signatures for these forms instead of just handwritten ones.
• Ensures that POLST forms from other states are accepted in California as long as they follow the rules of their state.

Who It Names or Affects

• Patients who want to make decisions about life-sustaining treatments.
• Doctors, nurses, and hospitals that provide care based on these decisions.
• Health care agents, conservators, or surrogates who help patients make these decisions.

Terms To Know

POLST

A form that tells doctors what life-saving treatments a patient wants or doesn't want.

Health care agent

Someone chosen by the patient to make health decisions if the patient can’t make them themselves.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what happens if a POLST form is lost or damaged.
• It's unclear how this will affect patients who don't have access to electronic signatures.
• There are no details on how doctors should handle forms that lack the required date.

Official Summary Text

SB 1088, as amended, Blakespear.
Health care decisions: life-sustaining treatment.
Existing law defines a request regarding resuscitative measures to mean a written document, signed by an individual with capacity or legally recognized health care decisionmaker and the individual’s physician that directs a health care provider regarding resuscitative measures, as prescribed. Existing law includes a prehospital “do not resuscitate” form, as developed by the Emergency Medical Services Authority or other substantially similar form, and Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment form (POLST form), as approved by the Emergency Medical Services Authority as requests regarding resuscitative measures.
This bill would replace the term “Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment” with
“POLST.”
“POLST,” or “Portable Orders Listing Scope of Treatment.”
The bill would authorize a request regarding resuscitative measures to be entered into by an individual with capacity or a health care, agent, conservator, or surrogate, as defined, and a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant acting under the supervision of the physician. The bill would specify that a request regarding resuscitative measures is entirely voluntary and the provision of care or admission to a facility cannot be conditioned on completion of or refusal to complete a POLST or prehospital “do not resuscitate” order.
Existing law prescribes requirements for forms for requests regarding resuscitative measures, including, among other things, that the form be signed by the executing parties.
The bill would specify that an electronic signature, as defined, is sufficient for any signature required for a request
regarding resuscitative measures. The bill would require the document to contain the date on which the document was signed by the health care provider and the patient or their health care agent, conservator, or
surrogate.
surrogate, but would clarify that the failure to include this date would not invalidate an otherwise valid POLST form.
Under this bill, a request regarding resuscitative measures executed in another state or jurisdiction that complies with the laws of that state or jurisdiction or the laws of California is considered valid and enforceable in California to the same extent as a request regarding resuscitative measures validly executed in California. The bill would specify that, in the absence of knowledge to the contrary, a physician or other health care
provider may presume that a request regarding resuscitative measures, whether executed in another state or jurisdiction or in California, is
valid.
valid and unrevoked.
The bill would make conforming changes.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF