Nursing's perspective on improving communication about nursing home residents' preferences for medical treatments at end of life

Oregon has developed a concise, 1-page medical order form, now widely used in nursing homes and hospice programs throughout the state, that conveys in dividual preferences for life-sustaining treatments or comfort-oriented tre atments at the end of life. This article describes nursing's role in the mu ltidisciplinary development, refinement, testing and implementation of the form and briefly summarizes results from descriptive research that demonstr ated the effectiveness of the POLST in a nursing home sample.