What Do You Want in End-of-Life Care?

Do you ever consider the medical decisions you may need to make for yourself in the future? It's common for these conversations to be challenging, but they're crucial. Recent research shows that 71% of Americans would prefer to die at home if given the choice rather than in a hospital. Yet a significant percentage of people still die in a hospital setting against their previously stated wishes. It's disheartening that we invest many resources within the hospital setting to give people what they don't necessarily want at the end of their lives. Much of this can be changed with an open dialogue around advance care planning.

As we approach National Healthcare Decisions Day later this month, I encourage everyone to talk about and document their end-of-life desires or care preferences if they can't speak for themselves. It's best to make these decisions early, while you're still healthy. How would you want to receive care as you age or in the event you are diagnosed with a progressive chronic disease or life-limiting illness?

Advance care planning is a genuine gift to your loved ones who won't need to make difficult decisions on your behalf if you're unable to.

The 5 wishes covered within healthcare advance directives include:

• Choosing the person who will make care decisions for you.
• Deciding on the medical treatments you want or don't want.
• Determining how comfortable you want to be.
• Specifying how you want people to treat you.
• Expressing what you want your loved ones to know. You should share these wishes with your family and with your healthcare providers.

As I write this, I can’t help but also think about the stigma that is sometimes associated with hospice care, which was established to ensure that people can die with dignity – that their quality of life is as good as it can be with their goals in mind, that they are comfortable, and that their wishes are honored. Many people avoid hospice services in favor of seeking additional treatments that have harmful side effects and offer no curative or long-term benefit. They may feel as though hospice means giving up. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, some studies suggest that for certain terminally ill patients, hospice is associated with longer survival.

If you happen to be on GBMC’s hospital campus on Monday, April 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., you can stop by our cafeteria to get resources and talk to some of our experts about advance care planning and creating your 5 wishes advance directive. Regardless, please take some time to make sure your loved ones and healthcare providers know your wishes!

Thank you to Dr. Robin Motter-Mast, our Chief of Staff, and Cathy Pauley, LCSW-C, APHSW-C, our Advance Care Planning Coordinator, for their leadership in educating patients about the importance of advance care planning and supporting patients and caregivers in having these critical conversations.

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We are currently in a time of ongoing religious observances, with the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish calendars filled with deep significance, spiritual introspection, and celebration. To all who celebrate Ramadan, Easter, and Passover, I wish you happy holidays.

I’d also like to take a moment to express gratitude to several of our teams, each of which is critical to providing the care we would want for our loved ones.

April is Occupational Therapy Month, and I’d like to thank our occupational therapists for their work to help patients regain their independence with activities of daily living following surgery or medical illness. 

This week is National Public Health Week. I’m grateful to our teams who are dedicated to making healthcare more accessible to all the communities we serve.

Patient Access Week is April 2-8. Our Patient Access representatives are the first point of contact for our Emergency Department, obstetrical and surgical patients. Thank you to these team members for your diligent attention to detail as you collect patient demographic information to ensure accurate patient identification as well as insurance information needed for billing.

National Cancer Registrars Week is April 3-7. Cancer registrars are truly unsung heroes in the fight against cancer. All our data on cancer survival, mortality and outcomes come from our tumor registrars and their work to document and abstract cancer data. We appreciate all you do!