Input Needed on Revisions to MOLST Form

The MOLST Team Executive Committee is conducting a survey to gather feedback from physicians and nurse practitioners who use MOLST and eMOLST regularly. If you use MOLST and/or eMOLST regularly and are interested in reviewing the draft revised MOLST form, please contact Dr. Patricia Bomba at patricia.bomba@lifethc.com.

Dr. Bomba has communicated the following and asked us to share it with members:

Proposed revisions to the DOH-5003 (6/10) MOLST form that are currently under review by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH). The proposed revisions reflect changes in Public Health Law and recommended changes in language to improve quality and reduce patient harm. The proposed clinical changes, including the need to add MOLST Instructions, are a direct result of feedback collected from physicians, nurse practitioners and others who regularly use MOLST and eMOLST for the past 8 years.

While the DOH review process is ongoing, we were recently made aware that the Department is considering making only the changes that directly result from changes in the Public Health Law to the MOLST form at this time, while reviewing the proposed clinical revisions at a later time. We firmly believe that the opportunity to revise the form should include the necessary clinical changes identified over the past 8 years. Physicians, nurse practitioners and patients would not benefit from the form being changed again in a short period of time. As a result, we are strongly advocating for DOH to include all of the proposed revisions to the form in one action.

In response to our request for letters of support from interested members of the Statewide Implementation as well as those physicians, clinicians and others who graciously reviewed and provided feedback on the proposed revisions, the MOLST Team received comments from some who were not part of the review process. In response, the MOLST Team Executive Committee is conducting the survey in order to obtain feedback from others who use MOLST and eMOLST regularly.

We appreciate you sharing your time and expertise in responding to this survey. The reasons for the proposed changes are included in the survey. The MOLST Team Executive Committee welcomes additional feedback. We anticipate the survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

To ensure broad statewide representation, the survey is not anonymous, but responses will be kept anonymous.

Contact: Elliott Frost, efrost@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8832