The Importance of Advance Care Planning

Completing the process of advance care planning can be uncomfortable, but the benefits to you and your loved ones are significant.

Close your eyes and imagine you have lost the ability to make healthcare decisions for yourself. Due to whatever cause, your loved ones are now faced with making the difficult choice(s) about your healthcare. Think of who would be at your side. Do they know what you would want? Do they know what you wouldn’t want?

What is the best way to guarantee that your wishes are known and honored in a situation like this? First, talk through these situations with your family, close friends, and health care providers now. Be clear with them about your goals and care preferences and then make sure to document them.

Completing the process of advance care planning can be uncomfortable, but the benefits to you and your loved ones are significant. It will help to ensure that the care you desire is the care you receive and prevents overtreatment or treatment by default. Having a plan will also decrease stress, depression, and anxiety for you and your family.

Advance care planning includes completing an advance directive, sometimes known as a living will. It also includes appointing a healthcare power of attorney, which is someone designated to make healthcare decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to. Completing this task is even more important in the state of Vermont, as it is not automatically your next of kin (spouse, parent, adult sibling, etc.) who can make decisions if you are unable to speak for yourself. Once you have completed your advance directive, do not lock it away in a desk or safe; share it with family members and providers who may need to access it. You can also submit copies to the Vermont Advance Directive Registry (https://www.healthvermont.gov/systems/advance-directives) to be accessed by authorized health care facilities and providers when needed.

When is the best time to complete the advance care planning process? The time is now. National Healthcare Decisions Day falls on April 16 every year. This day is dedicated to engaging the public to start thinking about personal wishes for health care, begin discussing these wishes with loved ones and complete an advance directive. If you have already started this process, fantastic! You are not off the hook though. Take a moment to revisit your advance care planning documents and assess if they still accurately reflect your healthcare choices. The Vermont Ethics Network website offers many online tools to help you in this process.

Revisiting your advance directive documents is an extremely important step because as time goes by, we change, and potentially our healthcare choices may as well. A good habit would be to review your documents every year on or near National Healthcare Decisions Day. Another approach would be to consider the “5 D’s” as times when your advance directive may need to be changed or updated. The “5 D’s” are: Decade birthday, Diagnosis, Deterioration, Divorce or Death of someone close to you or that affects you. All these events may affect how you think about future health care decisions for yourself.

So what is the takeaway?

Plan. Talk. Document. Share. Encourage others in your life to do the same.

Written by Nicole Moran, MSN, BA, RN, Chief Clinical Operations Officer, VNA & Hospice of the Southwest Region and Rutland Community Collaborative Core Team Member and Co-Lead of the Hospice & Palliative Care Sub Committee