Assessing Evidence for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment Programs

To the Editor Ms Moore and colleagues¹ noted that the US health care system provides many dying patients with unwanted medical interventions. They acknowledged the widespread and increasing use of the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) program and appealed for greater research about the effectiveness of POLST in supporting informed, patient-centered decision making. We agree but diverge in our views about the strength of existing evidence.