The process of advance care planning may result in the individual wishing to complete an advance care plan. Completing an advance care plan is a voluntary process which involves the person, their family/whanau and healthcare professionals who together on a nationally recognised document write down their treatment and care wishes and preferences.
This document can be lodged with your local GP and hospital for use at a later stage. Most importantly, the document belongs to the individual so it is of utmost important they keep a copy and notify family/whanau and friends where to locate a copy in an emergency.
For 2017 the aim in Taranaki is to promote ACP and encourage health professionals to engage in these conversations with patients, but equally for patients to request these conversations also. To help get Taranaki talking about advance care planning the hospital has employed me as the advance care planning facilitator.
My role is to assist staff with the process and provide education. I started the role in November 2016 and I am passionate about advance care planning. As an intensive care nurse for many years, I found it an all too common situation where patients lay incapacitated in Intensive Care, unable to voice their treatment preferences, with family spread geographically far and wide, often making decisions about end of life care without prior discussions.
These experiences have driven me to get Taranaki talking!
There is lots of information out there about advance care planning.
The Taranaki District Health Board website has a dedicated ACP page; you can even complete your own! Have a look today at http://www.tdhb.org.nz/services/acp.shtml
There is even a national website which you may like to look at www.advancecareplanning.org.nz.
Alternatively all local inquiries can be emailed to ACP.Admin@tdhb.org.nz.
And remember "have the conversations before the crisis" and most importantly I always like to leave you with food for thought ... "Talking about sex won't make you pregnant and talking about dying won't make you dead."