• Serge A Lindner, J Ben Davoren, Andrew Vollmer, Brie Williams, and C Seth Landefeld.
• San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, California, USA. linserge@yahoo.com
• J Am Geriatr Soc. 2007 Jul 1;55(7):1001-6.

ObjectivesTo develop an electronic medical record intervention to improve documentation of patient preferences about life-sustaining care, detail of resuscitation and treatment-limiting orders, and concordance between these orders and patient preferences.DesignProspective before-after intervention trial.SettingVeterans Affairs nursing home with an electronic medical record for all clinical information, including clinician orders.ParticipantsAll 224 nursing home admissions from May 1 to October 31, 2004.MeasurementsCompletion of an advance directive discussion note by the primary clinician, clinician orders about resuscitation and other life-sustaining treatments, and concordance between these orders and documented patient preferences.InterventionThe electronic medical record was modified so that an admission order would specify resuscitation status. Additionally, the intervention alerted the primary clinician to complete a templated advance directive discussion note for documentation of life-sustaining treatment preferences.ResultsPrimary clinicians completed an advance directive discussion note for five of 117 (4%) admissions pre-intervention and 67 of 107 (63%) admissions post-intervention (P<.001). In multivariate analysis, the intervention was independently associated with advance directive discussion note completion (odds ratio=42, 95% confidence interval=15-120). Of patients who preferred do-not-resuscitate (DNR) status, a DNR order was written for 86% pre-intervention versus 98% post-intervention (P=.07); orders to limit other life-sustaining treatments were written for 16% and 40%, respectively (P=.01).ConclusionsA targeted electronic medical record intervention increased completion of advance directive discussion notes in seriously ill patients. For patients who preferred DNR status, the intervention also increased the frequency of DNR orders and of orders to limit other life-sustaining treatments.

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