The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how individuals think about healthcare wishes and highlighted the need for advanced care planning. Thursday, April 16, is National Healthcare Decision Day, a great opportunity to consider your healthcare wishes and to encourage your loved ones to do the same.
How to start: Advance care planning begins with thinking about what matters most to you and discussing your healthcare wishes with your loved ones. Those wishes are then documented in an advance directive, which appoints a Health Care Agent or healthcare power of attorney—someone who can make healthcare decisions for you if you become unable to make decisions for yourself. It’s important to share the document with care providers and loved ones. With the ongoing pandemic, completing an advance directive or updating one is timely and important. Reviewing advance directives annually allows correction of anything that changed, like contact information for the patient and healthcare agent.
“The need to share healthcare wishes isn’t just about end-of-life care,” says Mary Helen Stricklin, RN, nursing director for Palliative Care. “Other situations, such as mental health, trauma, and other non-end-of-life issues, are critically important. It’s always too early until it’s too late.”
Caregivers, patients, and community members can get state-specific advance care planning documents on our website and have them added to their health records by emailing them to advancedirective@r1rcm.com.
Watch an Intermountain Facebook Live discussion with Mary Helen to learn more about advance care planning and National Healthcare Decision Day.