ADVANCE DIRECTIVES
ADVANCE DIRECTIVES
FamilyDoctor.org offers resources for patients, including information about advance directives and do-not-resuscitate orders. Advance directives & long-term care information can also be found on your medicare website. A decision aid to prepare patient's and their families for shared decision-making about cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), watch the video here.
Advance Care Directive: An advance directive is a written instruction that you make while you are mentally competent that states how you want your health care decisions to be made if you become incapacitated or cannot express your wishes. Advance directives guide your physician and other health care professionals, and relieve your family from the burden of guessing what types of care and treatment you would want to receive (treatment preferences).
Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST): uses a form that converts patient treatment preferences into written medical orders based on a health care professional's conversation with the patient and/or a proxy. POLST programs have been implemented in at least a dozen states and are in development in at least 20 more. (This is the form honored by Emergency Medical Services).
