Georgia POLST Collaborative

CRITICAL Conditions is a community educational program that helps people understand and plan for their health care at the end of life. This advance care planning program and the CRITICAL Conditions Planning Guide were developed by Georgia Health Decisions following extensive research to understand the opinions, attitudes and values people have abou... t health care at the end of life. Focus groups were conducted across the country and throughout Georgia to guide the creation of the CRITICAL Conditions program. Additionally, the program was piloted in eight communities in Georgia from 1998 2000. Since that time, the CRITICAL Conditions program has been expanded through the participation of health systems across Georgia and other states. The Georgia POLST Collaborative is part of the National POLST Paradigm which is an approach to end-of-life planning that emphasizes patients wishes about the care they receive. This approach emphasizes (i) advance care planning conversations between patients, health care professionals and loved ones; (ii) shared decision-making between a patient and his/her health care professional about the care the patient would like to receive at the end of his/her life; and (iii) ensuring patient wishes are honored. As a result of these conversations, patient wishes may be documented in our Georgia POLST document, which translates the shared decisions into actionable medical orders.Read More