POLST.
A POLST is a medical order, signed by a clinician, that turns your parent's wishes for serious-illness care into instructions emergency responders and hospitals must follow.
POLST stands for Physician (or Portable) Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment. In some states it goes by a different name such as MOLST or POST. Unlike an advance directive, which is a legal statement of wishes, a POLST is an actual medical order a doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant signs.
It is meant for a parent who is seriously ill or frail, and it spells out concrete choices: whether to attempt CPR, how aggressive to be with hospital treatment, and whether to use interventions like a breathing tube or feeding tube.
Because it is a portable order, it travels with your parent between home, the ambulance, and the hospital, usually as a brightly colored form. Keep the original where it can be found fast, and make sure the care circle knows where that is.
Where Kinbase fits
Terms like this one show up in real weeks, in a discharge folder or a doctor’s offhand remark. Kinbase gives your family one place to keep what you learn about your parent’s care, so the next person helping is not starting from scratch.
Start your family’s record.
Name the book, invite the people who help, and the record starts keeping itself. Most families are set up inside ten minutes.
Free for families to start. Everyone you invite joins from a link or by scanning a code, and nobody has to install anything to read or write.