Read the Honolulu Advertiser Article "Hawaii bill gives patients a voice - Document tells health workers how far to go in treating gravely ill" from June 15, 2009

POLST or Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment is now law in Hawai‘i.

• POLST Form and Provider's Guide

Congratulations to the POLST team for their success and thank you to everyone who helped make it possible!

Hawaii's Governor Linda Lingle has decided to neither sign not veto and Act 186 became law by default on July 15th.

Please check back to the Kokua Mau website for more information about POLST in the near future.  As this legislation takes effect,  this website will become a central repository for POLST related information and questions and the bill’s implication for people living in Hawai‘i.  The core team will be meeting shortly to develop a plan of action and we should have a document by early September.  If you would like to be updated on our progress or join the team, please contatct jkoijane@kokuamau.org.

During the 2009 Legislative session, our legislative agenda has focused on the passage of a bill to implement a POLST system (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment).  Good work to everyone who contributed testimony and helped this bill move forward.

     Please click here to track the POLST bill.

    Please click here for a pdf of HB1379

What is POLST?  The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) is designed to improve the quality of care people receive at the end of life. It is based on the effective communication of patient wishes, documentation of medical orders on a brightly colored form and a promise by health care professionals to honor these wishes.

POLST complements an advance health care directive by taking the individual's wishes regarding life-sustaining treatment, such as those set forth in the advance health care directive, and converting those wishes into a medical order. The hallmarks of a physician orders for life sustaining treatment form are that:

1. The orders contained in the standardized form are immediately actionable, signed medical orders;
2. The orders address a range of life sustaining interventions as well as the patient's preferred intensity of treatment for each intervention;
3. The form is clearly identifiable and is available in an electronic form;
4. The form is recognized, adopted, and honored across various treatment settings.
5. The form will be recognized by the Emergency Medical System, replacing the Comfort Care Only / Do Not Resuscitate Bracelet

The form is particularly useful for individuals who are frail and elderly or who have a compromised medical condition, a prognosis of one year of life, or a terminal illness. The purpose of the bill currently in the legislature is to implement the use of a standardized form that states an individual's wishes regarding end-of-life treatment in all pre-hospital and health care settings.

For more information on POLST, please visit the national website http://www.ohsu.edu/ethics/polst/

A coalition of healthcare providers, the Department of Health, and Kokua Mau is working on this legislation.

We are always seeking dedicated individuals who would like to submit letters of testimony in support of these pieces of legislation or to otherwise support their passage.  Please email us to get involved!

If you submit testimony we thank you and ask that you please email us a copy for our records.