Oregon healthcare providers can electronically find patients' end-of-life wishes by simply clicking in the state's Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment registry, according to Kaiser Health News report.
The electronic option is part of a partnership between Portland-based Oregon Health and Science University and Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology firm Vynca. Through the partnership, 172,000 active POLST forms — which document patients' end-of-life wishes —are electronically available to OHSU healthcare providers via the state registry with one click, according to the report. Healthcare providers not only have access to forms submitted within OHSU, as they did previously, but also forms patients filled out within other organizations.
Dana Zive, the registry's director, told Kaiser Health News OHSU providers have clicked nearly 14,000 times in more than four months.
The one-click access to POLST forms is slated to expand within Oregon. For instance, Corvallis, Ore.-based Samaritan Health Services plans to add the offering later in 2017, according to the report.
Read the full report here.