Oregon Public Broadcasting

A medical form that helps people with serious illnesses tell doctors what life-sustaining treatment they want, goes online this week. As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, that's important because sick people often don't carry the form with them.

When an ambulance is called to a car crash, or to a home where someone is sick, every effort is made to stabilize the patient. But sometimes, people suffering from advanced diseases don't want to go through the pain and expense of emergency treatment.

So, they can fill in a POLST form or Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment Form.

Dr. Susan Tolle, of the Ethics in Health Care department at OHSU, says this week the form information will be available on line, for the convenience of patients and doctors alike.

Susan Tolle: "So sometimes emergency medicine personnel come running in and they can't find it. They will then be able to call into this statewide registry and get the information wherever they are."

Oregon first developed POLST forms in the early 1990's. The idea has been adopted by about 30 other states.

It differs from an advanced directive because it's an order -- rather than a request -- from the patient to the doctors.