The USI GWEP has initiated advance care planning (ACP) in order to help patients in understanding and sharing their personal values, life goals and preferences regarding future medical care. ACP education and certification is offered through two programs, PREPARE for Your Care (PREPARE) and Respecting Choices First Steps (Respecting Choices). These combined programs allow a patient to begin and engage in the initial ACP process on their own, using PREPARE, and then speak with an ACP facilitator about their choices, using Respecting Choices. Once the patient has participated in both programs, a medical professional will review the patient’s choices within a clinical context.
PREPARE was created by Rebecca Sudore, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. This bilingual, interactive program allows patients to learn about ACP and draft their Advanced Healthcare Directives on their own and for no cost to the patient. The PREPARE program is comprised of five steps: choosing a medical decision maker; deciding what matter most in life; choosing flexibility for the chosen medical decision maker; telling others about the wishes made; and asking doctors the right questions. Each part of the program is broken up into short sections which gives in depth explanation of the ACP process while asking simple questions in order aid the patient in drafting an Advanced Healthcare Directive.
Respecting Choices is an internationally recognized model of ACP that honors an individual’s choices for their present and future healthcare. Respecting Choices focuses on facilitated ACP conversations. Similar to PREPARE, Respecting Choices is designed for patients to engage in the program based on their level of ACP engagement and health status. Currently, Kevin Valadares, PhD, Chair of Health Administration and Professor of Health Services at USI, is training Area Agency on Aging case managers, medical residents, physicians and health professionals within a 12-county region in Indiana. This training teaches ACP facilitators how to provide guided conversations with patients who are ready to participate in ACP.
Both programs are beneficial ways for patients to learn about ACP and why ACP is so important for both their current and future medical care. By providing an interactive, easy to understand explanation of ACP and step-by-step instructions for drafting an Advanced Healthcare Directive, both PREPARE and Respecting Choices are programs from which anybody may significantly benefit.
