BACKGROUND: On July 1, 2018, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) National Center for Ethics in Health Care implemented the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative (LSTDI). Its goal is to identify, document, and honor LST decisions of seriously ill veterans. Providers document veterans' goals and decisions using a standardized LST template and order set. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the first 7 months of LSTDI implementation and identify predictors of LST template completion. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study of clinical and administrative data. We identified all completed LST templates, defined as completion of four required template fields. Templates also include four non-required fields. Results were stratified by risk of hospitalization or death as estimated by the Care Assessment Need (CAN) score.
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