“Speak for Yourself – Plan Your Care” is a community-wide advance
care planning initiative started by Lakeland Health, Caring Circle,
and PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly). This initiative
involves a systematic approach that includes establishing a process
to easily find advance care planning documents in an accessible
location within the healthcare system. We are encouraging people,
at any age, to identify a designated decision maker, and document
their end-of-life wishes. The focus of the “Speak for Yourself – Plan
Your Care” project is for people to have meaningful discussions with
their loved ones about their values and what “quality of life” means
to them, much earlier in life, and before a crisis. Certified facilitators
are located within the following sites:
- PACE
- Parish Nursing – First Church of God, United Methodist,
Trinity Lutheran
- Pine Ridge: A Rehabilitation and Nursing Center
- Palliative Care/Hospice at Home (now part of Caring Circle)
- Radiation/Oncology
- Inpatient – CCU St. Joseph
- PCP Offices – Edgewater Family Health; Lakeside Healthcare
Specialists; and Southwestern Medical Clinic, Bridgman
We have also engaged Honoring Healthcare Choices of Michigan
– www.honoringhealthcarechoicesmi.org – as this group
helps Michigan communities implement the evidence-based
advance care planning model called Respecting Choices.
Through the end of 2016 each team is expected to conduct a
minimum of 10 conversations using new patient education tools,
a revised advance care plan which includes Gift of Life options,
and a patient advocate acceptance of role section. This initial
phase allows us to enhance documentation within various
electronic medical records, and identify other opportunities to
improve before expanding the program to other locations.
To help community members understand more about advance
care planning, Caring Circle has been facilitating FREE community
screenings of the PBS “Frontline” film “Being Mortal.” This film
is based on the best-selling book by Atul Gawande, MD, and
explores the hopes of patients and families facing terminal illness,
and the relationships with the physicians who treat them. “Being
Mortal” sheds light on how a medical system focused on a cure
often leaves out the sensitive conversations that need to happen
so a person’s true wishes can be known and honored at the end.
If you were unable to attend one of the community
screenings you can view “Being Mortal” by visiting
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/being-mortal/