California POLST Form Prevalence in Skilled Nursing Facilities 2011-2023

California Department of Public Health data compares the proportion of skilled nursing facility residents with completed Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms by county and year. The dataset spans from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2023. It includes counts of nursing homes and distinct residents for analysis.

Use Cases

• Analyze the proportion of residents with completed POLST forms by county and year to identify regional trends in end-of-life care planning.
• Compare statewide and county-level percentages of residents with completed versus unsigned POLST forms to assess documentation gaps.
• Examine completion rates of specific medical treatment sections on signed POLST forms across different California counties.

Strengths

• Thirteen-year time range from 2011 to 2023 enables longitudinal analysis of POLST adoption trends.
• Data is disaggregated by county, allowing for geographic comparisons across California.
• Includes counts of both nursing homes and distinct residents, providing denominators for rate calculations.
• Published by the authoritative California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

Limitations

• Dataset is limited to residents of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), excluding other care settings and community-dwelling individuals.
• Specific row counts and column details are not provided, limiting assessment of granularity and sample size.
• Data is labeled as archived, which may indicate it is no longer being actively updated or maintained.

Provenance

Source

California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

Collection Method

Created from reports on the prevalence of POLST documents in skilled nursing facilities, likely derived from facility submissions or surveys.

Time Range

January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2023.

Freshness

Data covers through December 31, 2023, with metadata last updated in February 2026.

Geography

California, United States, with data available by county.