National Healthcare Decisions Day
April 16 is recognized as National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD). This day exists to inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning. This day doesn’t exactly sound like a day of celebration with streamers and party horns, but it is a day to highlight a very important subject. Do you and/or your loved ones have an advance care directive?
A healthcare advance directive is a legal written document that can be completed by all adults at any age or stage of health. Health care advance directive is a term that refers to a person’s spoken and written instructions about future medical care and treatment, including but not limited to, instructions regarding your preferences or desires concerning any aspect of your health care, communicating your preferences for life-prolonging and palliative care procedures and a living will declaration or an anatomical gift made in accordance with your state’s law. By stating your health care choices in an advance directive, you are helping your family and physician understand your wishes about your medical care.
By creating an advance directive ahead of when the need arises, provides YOU time to think through what is important to you, gives YOU time to explore your options as well as gives YOU the say in what medical care you will receive. Having this document relinquishes the stress from your spouse, children, siblings or any loved one from having to make hard decisions when they are already in the middle of managing whatever healthcare crisis that might be dictating the need for such decisions.
In recognition of this designated day, the question must be asked. Do you have advanced directives? Have you talked to and shared your final wishes with your spouse, children and/or siblings? If you answered “no” to any of these, please let this be the reminder that now is the time to address this important topic.
