As National Healthcare Decisions Day approaches on April 16, Partners In Care is leading an initiative to highlight the importance of advance healthcare decision-making. Emphasis on this day helps us all focus on stressing the importance of patients and families talking frankly about the care they would or would not want if ever faced with a serious medical condition or life-limiting illness.
We know what a difference it can make. On a daily basis, our hospice and palliative care providers talk with families who have benefited from having conversations about their loved one’s wishes at life’s end. Because they are in the middle of the crisis, they can see how challenging it might have been if those conversations had never happened. Families who have taken the time to talk about and document issues that are important – often long before a serious illness is even a concern – know how reassuring and comforting it is to know what is truly important to a loved one.
While making healthcare decisions is often difficult in the best of circumstances, making decisions for others is even more complicated. Each of us has the ability to guide our healthcare providers and our loved ones about what we want. How? Advance directives give you the ability to document the types of healthcare you do and do not want, and to name an “agent” to speak for you if you cannot speak for yourself.
An advance directive is a great tool to help you think through decisions and get questions answered. All adults can benefit from thinking about what their healthcare choices would be if they are unable to speak for themselves. These decisions can be written down in an advance directive so that others know what they are. Advance directives come in two main forms:
• A healthcare power of attorney (or proxy or agent or surrogate) documents the person you select to be your voice for your healthcare decisions if you cannot speak for yourself.
• A living will documents what kinds of medical treatments you would or would not want at the end of life.
Thinking about what would be important to you in a medical crisis and making your wishes known to loved ones is what National Healthcare Decisions Day is all about – regardless of age or health status.
Please visit www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org for a variety of free information (including free advance directives forms for every state) and tools to assist with thoughtful reflection on healthcare choices and ideas on how to get involved.
Or contact Partners In Care at www.partnersbend.org or 541-382-5882 and ask for Transitions community resources. Please share this information with your loved ones and friends.
Lorie Weber is the Outreach Director at Partners In Care, Central Oregon’s only independent, non-hospital based, not-for-profit hospice, home health and palliative care organization.
