A bill introduced by State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would give health care professionals access to an electronic record of patients’ end-of-life care instructions.

Senate Bill 19 is eligible to be heard in January, when the state Legislature reconvenes.

Wolk, who represents Benicia, said the bill would give doctors and other professionals immediate access to their patients’ Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form, which she called “precise instruction for their end-of-life health care.”

Wolk authored a 2008 law requiring that a completed POLST form must be honored by all health care providers.

A POLST form is a tool that seriously ill patients with a life expectancy of a year or less can use to communicate precise instructions on a range of treatment options, Wolk said. The form also gives patients a chance to express clearly their treatment preferences about such life-sustaining treatments as resuscitation, as well as nutrition and pain management.

SB 19 would create a statewide registry so professionals could obtain an electronic copy of the form, Wolk said, particularly during emergency medical situations when a paper copy isn’t available.

“The California POLST Registry would be administered by the Health and Human Services Agency,” she said.

She said studies have shown that the preferences on the POLST form largely are followed by medical professionals, but if the form only is available by hard copy it may be unavailable in some circumstances, unless the patient has it on hand.

“As emergency physicians, we are trained to resuscitate all patients who come through our door,” said Dr. Michael Osmundson, president of California American College of Emergency Physicians. “We never want to do that if it goes against a patient’s wishes.”

He said SB 19 would ensure the POLST is available to emergency physicians “so we can honor the choices our patients have made about their end-of-life care.”

“A person’s decisions relating to end-of-life care are among the most important they’ll ever make,” Wolk said.

“A statewide electronic registry will help provide emergency medical personnel immediate access to these vital medical orders to ensure patients’ wishes are honored.”

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