Advance care planning is the process of making decisions for future medical care in case you become too sick or injured to make them for yourself. It can be uncomfortable to think about, so many of us put off this conversation until later or sometimes never bring it up. Thinking about being sick can be uncomfortable to think about, so many of us put off the conversation or sometimes never bring it up. However, the easiest time to think about it is before an illness or crisis, when you have time for discussion and reflection with your loved ones. By taking the time to go through this process, you can promote peace of mind in a difficult situation if your loved ones are ever called upon to make decisions for you.
The process of advance care planning involves 2 parts: choosing a health care agent, or the person you would trust to speak for you if you became unable to make decisions, and thinking about your values and what quality of life means, and then making decisions about what treatments you would and would not want based on these values.
To help you in this process, UPMC is launching a new advance directive, the Pennsylvania Advance Healthcare Directive, which we will be providing for our patients and members and also to our employees and loved ones. You can download this advance directive for free at https://www.upmc.com/advancedirective and during this year’s UPMC Day of Conversation campaign we encourage you to do that and to start this conversation with your loved ones. Making time to have this conversation now with your loved ones is one of the ways you can take care of yourself and those you love.
(Donald D. Wolff Jr., Center for Quality, Safety, and Innovation at UPMC)
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