By Martha K. Jurchak, RN, PhD
Just as you plan for your future financially, you should also make the same provisions in regard to your health care. It is important to maintain your voice in your health care decision-making. To do this, it is important to have fully communicated your values and beliefs about the care and extent of life-saving measures that you would like to receive if, at some point, you become incapacitated and are unable to speak for yourself.
Health care proxies and living wills enable you to define who will be responsible for your medical care decisions and the treatment you would like to receive. Too often illness and aging are the motivating factors behind creating a health care proxy and living will when, in actuality, it is important for everyone — no matter your age or health condition — to have this information readily available.
Both health care proxies and living wills support patient-centered decision-making by reinforcing, legally and ethically, the choices you have made about your medical care based on lifestyle, personal beliefs and experiences or other factors that are important to you.
A health care proxy is a legal document that enables you to appoint someone who is 18 years or older to make decisions about your care for you if you are unable to make those decisions for yourself. The person that you identify as your health care proxy has broad authority over your care and, as important, has access to all of your medical records.
When determining who will be your health care proxy, which can easily be revoked or changed, it is important to speak with that person about your plans and preferences.
A living will is an advance directive that allows you to specify your preferences for medical care, to be followed by your health care providers, should you become terminally ill or it is not expected that you will recover from physical or mental disability or disease. It can give general guidelines, such as requesting no life-support if you are terminally ill, or specific instructions, such as banning the use of a breathing tube.
While in Massachusetts it is not legally recognized in the same way as a health care proxy, the living will defines the limits of intervention as determined by you, therefore providing crucial information and directions for the person who will step in as your health care proxy. Your health care proxy can also use what they know about you personally and statements you have made in the past to make decisions.
It is now common for doctors, in particular primary care physicians, to discuss health care proxies and living wills with their patients. When you go to your doctor or to the hospital, you should bring along copies of these documents that will become a permanent part of your paper and electronic medical records.
Once your decision is made about whom to appoint as your health care proxy and your preferences for medical care are determined, completing the forms to establish these documents is a simple and easy task.
Martha K. Jurchak, RN, PhD, is Assistant Director of the Ethics Service at Brigham and Women's/Faulkner Hospitals.
Start Planning Today!
Call 1-877-BWF-5773 for a copy of our "Patient and Family Guide to Advance Directives: Information on Health Care Proxies and Living Wills", that includes easy-to-use Health Care Proxy and Living Will forms. Or view and download the forms online.
