The Advanced Health Care Directive

Part 1: The Advance Health Care Directive 

The advanced health care directive was obtained from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, which is an organization that provides access to a wide range of advanced healthcare directives for different states in America. The advanced health care directive is compliant with the state laws as it capitalizes on addressing the legal elements that guide the process of planning and making end-of-life wishes. According to Yadav, Gabler, Cooney, Kent, Kim, Herbst, & Courtright (2017), an advanced health care directive is a legal document that defines a person’s wishes and actions that would be taken in a situation that they may not have the capacity to make decision owing to factors such illness. The advanced health care directive includes a living will, which gives guidelines on treatment and medical power of attorney that defines a person that would make decisions in the case where an individual becomes incapacitated. The advanced health care directive in my state works during a situation where an individual wishes that their end-of-life desires are honored. 

The completion process of the advanced health care directive is somewhat easy as it does not involve complex elements that may be difficult to comprehend. Considering that the main objective of the advanced health care directive is to present the end-of-life desires of an individual, the process of completing is easy as it requires defining the specific wants. Firstly, it is essential to have adequate knowledge regarding individual healthcare choices in a bid to engage in an active process of filling out the living will form, which requires making healthcare choices such as treatment instructions (Tamura, Montez-Rath, Hall, Katz, & O’Hare, 2017). Secondly, it is essential to engage family and friends in the process in a bid to identify a medical decision-maker that would make the medical decision in the situation of incapacitation. The difficulties that people often get involve the inability to understand the requirements of the legal document. 

Part II: Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form 

A Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form is a medical order that helps towards improving end-of-life care. The main objective of the form entails encouraging healthcare professionals to engage patients in the process of defining specific medical laws that would be honored in a situation involving a medical crisis. The medical law capitalizes on the defining treatment options and preferences based on the current medical conditions of the patient. According to Hickman, Keevern, & Hammes (2015), the POLST form should be completed in a situation where the medical condition of a patient continues to deteriorate. A POLST should be updated periodically to identify changes that may be experienced during different stages of the patient's health status. Considering that the form should be used in various care settings and care levels, it is crucial to ensure that it is updated periodically in a bid to capitalize on the relevance of the information. 

The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form should be completed by a health care professional. The health profession should capitalize on engaging in a conversation with the patients in a bid to obtain all the relevant information that would be required. Considering that the form allows for emergency treatment, it is necessary to ensure that the medical professional gets the full consent of the patient before filing the document (Hickman, Hammes, Torke, Sudore, & Sachs, 2017). A medical professional should sign the POLST form in a bid to make it a legally binding document. However, the structure could also be approved by the patient based on the laws and regulations defined within the state and in the situation where a patient has the ability to take part in the signing process. 

Part III: Summary and Conclusion 

Differences between an Advance Health Care Directive and the POLST 

An advance health care directive differs from the POLST based on the objectives defined in each of the documents. Firstly, an advance health care form focuses on sharing individual wishes that should be honored in the situation of incapacitation, and it defines an individual that would make medical decisions on behalf. On the other hand, the POLST capitalizes on summarizing the individual wishes of a patient in the form of a medical order. Secondly, an advance health care form helps in specifying the therapeutic options that you would prefer or not prefer in case of a medical crisis while a POLST provides guidance to the medical professionals on the treatment options that would be used in an emergency, which is based on the current medical condition (Mirarchi, Doshi, Zerkle, & Cooney, 2015). Lastly, in an advance health care form, a patient may identify a healthcare surrogate that would engage in decision making while in the POLST form, a patient cannot identify or define a healthcare surrogate. 

Role of a Registered Nurse 

A registered nurse has an essential role in informing the patients on their rights in choosing healthcare interventions that they may prefer. Considering that the majority of patients lack adequate knowledge regarding their rights to select healthcare interventions, the nurses must capitalize on ensuring that the patients have information regarding various ways to engage in the choosing of the responses. The nurses should guide the patients to understand the completion of an advance health care directive and the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form, which are legal documents that may be used in a situation where the medical condition of the patients deteriorates. 

References 

Hickman, S. E., Hammes, B. J., Torke, A. M., Sudore, R. L., & Sachs, G. A. (2017). The quality of physician orders for life-sustaining treatment decisions: a pilot study.  Journal of palliative medicine ,  20 (2), 155-162. 

Hickman, S. E., Keevern, E., & Hammes, B. J. (2015). Use of the physician orders for a life ‐ sustaining treatment program in the clinical setting: a systematic review of the literature.  Journal of the American Geriatrics Society ,  63 (2), 341-350. 

Mirarchi, F. L., Doshi, A. A., Zerkle, S. W., & Cooney, T. E. (2015). TRIAD VI: how well do emergency physicians understand Physicians Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) forms?.  Journal of patient safety ,  11 (1), 1-8. 

Tamura, M. K., Montez-Rath, M. E., Hall, Y. N., Katz, R., & O’Hare, A. M. (2017). Advance directives and end-of-life care among nursing home residents receiving maintenance dialysis.  Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology ,  12 (3), 435-442. 

Yadav, K. N., Gabler, N. B., Cooney, E., Kent, S., Kim, J., Herbst, N., ... & Courtright, K. R. (2017). Approximately one in three US adults completes any type of advance directive for end-of-life care.  Health Affairs ,  36 (7), 1244-1251.