Advance Care Directives
Understanding Your Right to Health Care Decisions
Every competent adult possesses the fundamental right to make informed decisions concerning their own health. This includes the autonomy to choose or refuse medical treatment. Recognizing this right is especially important for adults over the age of 65, who are strongly encouraged to establish an Advance Directive. Having an Advance Directive ensures that emergency medical personnel (EMS) and family members are aware of your health care preferences in the event that you’re unable to communicate. What's nice is that you don't need a lawyer, a doctor, or a notary to create an Advance Directive. You can do it by simply completing a form that's acceptable in your state, and having it signed by two witnesses.
What Is an Advance Health Care Directive?
An Advance Health Care Directive, often referred to simply as an Advance Directive, is a legal document that can be divided into three primary sections. The first section allows you to appoint a Healthcare Surrogate—a trusted individual empowered to make medical decisions on your behalf should you become incapacitated. The document also typically includes a living will, outlining your wishes for medical treatment in specific scenarios, and a section to authorize anatomical donations if you so choose. It's important to mention that a request for No CPR on your Advance Directive won't necessarily be honored unless you also have a Do Not Resuscitate order issued by your physician. The physician-generated Do Not Resuscitate order relieves emergency responders from liability for withholding resuscitation. An Advance Directive, by itself, won't do that, so without a Do Not Resuscitate order, it's likely that you'll be resuscitated.
Informing Others of Your Advance Directive
The biggest challenge faced once you've created an Advance Directive is insuring that the right people know about it. That includes your family, legal and financial advisors, and medical personnel. You could provide them with copies of the form you've completed, but paper can easily get lost. StickyJ Medical ID offers practical solutions to ensure that both family members and EMS personnel are promptly informed of your Advance Directive. Available products include wallet cards, pendants, and slide-on tags designed for Apple watch bands. Each identification item is engraved with your name, the emergency medical symbol, the words “Advance Directive,” and a QR code. By scanning the QR code with a smartphone, responders can instantly access your complete Advance Directive on the device’s screen, ensuring immediate awareness of your health care instructions. Consider ordering several of the wallet cards and distributing them to family members and your health care surrogate. The other notification items are considered 'wearables'. They help to identify you in the event of an emergency, and help to insure that medical personnel are aware of your wishes. EMS personnel won't necessarily honor the treatment plan in an Advance Directive, but if you are transported to a hospital or other healthcare facility, it's more likely that your wishes will be honored and that your health care surrogate will be notified more quickly.
How the Service Works
When you place an order with StickyJ Medical ID, you will be asked to scan and upload your multi-page Advance Directive as a PDF file. Adobe Scan is a free app that's available on both Android and iPhone devices. Your document is securely stored in a Microsoft Azure cloud database. Whenever the QR code on your Advance Directive Notification item is scanned, your Advance Directive will be immediately retrieved and displayed on the device that was used to scan the QR. Notably, this storage and retrieval service is provided without any annual fees, offering both security and peace of mind. If you're at the beginning of your advance health care planning journey and haven't yet created an Advance Directive, a wonderful organization called Caring Info has gathered together the recommended Advance Directive forms for all the states, and you can access them here: Advance Directive Forms For Your State
Once you've completed your Advance Directive, please come back to purchase your Advance Directive notification jewelry at Advance Health Care Directive Notification Items from StickyJ
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