Health Care Decisions Month: Engage the Community Where They Live, Work, and Pray

SCHCDM

Mar 10

It is often the case that advance care planning has occurred in a clinical setting—a hospital or doctor’s office—as clinicians engage patient and families to understand what matters most to them through person-centered conversations and/or educational sessions.

Engagement should expand beyond the health care system, however, to meet people where they live, work, and pray. By leading by example, we understand and empathize how difficult these conversations may be.

Nevertheless, we can’t plan for everything, and conversations clarify and can actually help give us a sense of control. We can help manage life’s unknowns by talking openly about what matters and what we’d want most if we are unable to speak for ourselves.

We have declared April as South Carolina Health Care Decisions Month to help encourage these important conversations. During this month, we are challenging everyone across the state, including health care professionals, to express their goals of care and for their health care providers and facilities to develop supportive processes to ensure every person’s health care is in accordance with their goals, values and preferences—at all stages of life, in all steps of their care.

Our hope is all South Carolinians will understand that making future health care decisions includes much more than deciding what care they would or would not want.

View the S.C. Health Care Decisions Month Toolkit

As we talk to those who matter to us—whether friends, family, religious leaders, or our doctors—remember the goal is to have meaningful conversations about our preferences for care at all stages of life and health.

Our values and preferences often stem from everyday joys that fulfill us, things that matter to us and what a good day looks like to us. These are conversations that everyone should have, no matter their age or health status.

Spiritual leaders and community organizations have an important role in this as they may have the most meaningful relationships with community members.

Learn more about how to engage communities and congregations by using The Conversation Project’s Getting Started Guide for Communities and Getting Started Guide for Congregations.

And join us this April for South Carolina Health Care Decisions Month by pledging to participate here.

A good day tomorrow starts with a good talk today. If you became seriously ill, would the people who matter most really know what matters most to you? Share the kind of care that’s right for you, and what your good days look like—no matter what happens tomorrow.

Take the S.C. Health Care Decisions Month Pledge

Best Practice: Trained Chaplains Offer Spiritual Support Through Advance Care Planning

AnMed Health engages its Respecting Choices® First Steps® trained chaplains in supporting advance care planning at the practice level. Physician practices schedule advance care planning appointments with patients once it is introduced by the clinician. Chaplains then facilitate the remainder of the advance care planning conversation.

These appointments are billed under the CMS advance care planning codes. In the two years since the program’s launch, AnMed Health has conducted more than 1,200 advanced care planning conversations. Of those conversations conducted in 2018, over 90 percent chaplain-facilitated conversations resulted in completed advance directives.

Their success is driven by the recognition that document completion alone is not a substitute for quality conversations. AnMed continues to expand their education and training efforts to support quality conversations using an evidence-based, patient-tested training model that is intended to honor individual health care choices.

Resource: AnMed Health’s Chaplaincy Program Takes Advanced Care Planning into Physician Practices »

View Toolkit

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