New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System has become the first health system to join an initiative to create a statewide electronic registry for advance care planning documents, according to a Feb. 19 news release.
Ochsner partnered with advance care planning technology company Vynca and the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum, who have been working together to develop the registry since 2018. The database launched in July 2019, and allows clinicians to upload, update and access patients' Louisiana Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment forms and other end-of-life care documents.
The goal of the registry is to make advance care plans easily accessible to clinicians across the state and in all care settings, ensuring patients receive the end-of-life care they want throughout transitions of care.
"Ochsner recognizes digital access to advance care planning documents and LaPOST forms will ensure that our patients, as well as their families and care teams, have the information available when they need it. The partnership with Vynca and the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum allows us to create momentum so that one day digital access for vital advance care planning documents will be the norm," Susan Nelson, MD, Ochsner's chair of palliative medicine, said in the release.
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