Houston Solari Hospice Care Advises Making Healthcare Decisions in Advance
On April 16, Houston Solari Hospice Care will be proud to partner with participating organizations around the country in the fifth annual National Healthcare Decisions Day, which has been established to inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning.
The day spotlights tough decisions that people often avoid asking and answering, such as:
“Who will speak for you in a medical crisis should you become unable to speak for yourself?”
“What decisions will your family and doctors make on your behalf?”
“Have you made your wishes known?”
“It’s not easy to sit around the dinner table with your loved ones and talk about death and dying, but it can be even more uncomfortable to make healthcare decisions without the benefit of having that conversation,” Meagan Davis, L.M.S.W., social worker at Houston Solari Hospice Care, said. “Usually bringing up the topic is the hardest part. Once it’s out in the open, most individuals feel better knowing their wishes will be honored. And, family caregivers don’t have to second guess what a patient wants.”
Advance directives are an umbrella term that usually includes three main forms of legal documents. A living will specifies what kind of life-sustaining medical treatment a person will want to receive—or to have withheld—if they are terminally ill, permanently unconscious, or in the end-stage of a fatal illness. A healthcare power of attorney, also called a proxy, designates the person that will be appointed as their voice in healthcare decisions should the individual be unable to communicate those decisions. An out-of-hospital do-not-resuscitate order instructs healthcare professionals to make people as pain-free as possible, but not to use extraordinary life-saving measures such as chest compressions, artificial ventilation, or electric shocks and medication to re-start the heart or breathing.
“Most people don’t understand that some states will not recognize advance directive orders written for another state, so if people move or seek care in a different state, they should be re-examined and rewritten,” Inez Burton, L.C.S.W., social worker at Houston Solari Hospice Care, said. “For example, Texas will only honor an out-of-hospital DNR that is specific to our state.”
Forms for every state are available on the Internet and can be downloaded for free by going to www.nhdd.org.
To learn more about Houston Solari Hospice Care, please call 713-664-7120 or visit the hospice at www.solarihospice.com. The Houston Solari Hospice Care Inpatient Home is located at 9714 S. Gessner Road in Houston.
About Houston Solari Hospice Care
Houston Solari Hospice Care is devoted to helping people live with dignity and comfort by providing trusted and professional hospice care in the Houston community. Focused on enhancing the quality of life for patients and their loved ones, Solari's exemplary team of physicians, pharmacists, registered nurses, certified nursing aides, administrative staff and bereavement counselors are specially trained to offer the most compassionate and comforting care designed for each patient's unique individual needs.
