Hola everobody, my dear amig@s (I am going to start Spanish lessons!)

Returning to the topic already started in Do we need a Code Death?, today I want to share with you an article published in Medicina Intensiva in 2011 by Dra. Rosa Poyo-Guerrero and other components of the Committee of Ethics of the Hospital Son Llàtzer in Palma de Mallorca.

Life-sustaining treatment limitation (LSTL) is an increasingly common practice. However, its application is sometimes not clearly reflected in the clinical record–this giving rise to the adoption of measures that could have been avoided, including admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), with the suffering for the patient, the work of heath-providers and economical costs this implies.


One way to trace patients subjected to LSTL is through an electronic registry allowing identification at all times of these individuals, and of the therapies that have been restricted in each case. The Ethics Committee of our center has developed a tool allowing the identification of patients subjected to LSTL and of the level of intervention required, and offering the association of a patient comfort management protocol.

From Son Llatzer, they proposed a way to identify patients with LSTL through an electronic registry that allows to view at all times who are these patients and which therapies have restricted in each case with patient preferably, his family and the staff in charge of each patient.

The LSTL in Intensive Care Medicine includes: income limitation, limitation of the onset of certain measures of support or the withdrawal of measures once established.

The tool also serves to determine three levels, because not all patients require a limitation of all available therapeutic measures and we need to associate a wellness treatment protocol as well as a plan of special care by nurses.

I invite you to carefully read the results at the following link.

This could be a way on the how? and also addresses clearly and concisely the who?. Of course, it’s a clear sign that we need to find channels of communication among professionals, family members and patients for the sake of all.

Happy Tuesday, my dear rogues.