END OF LIFE PLANNING

Advance Care Planning means deciding what types of treatment you would or would not want in case you are unable to make your own decisions. It allows you to maintain control over your treatment, should you experience a sudden unexpected illness or injury, as well as when you have reached the end of your life. By completing some simple forms, you can make sure that your family and caregivers know your wishes.

If you are not sure where to begin, you may wish to review The Conversation Project or Five Wishes, both which provides free information and resources to help you start the conversation with your physician and your loved ones.

The Conversation Project

Five Wishes®. Talking About Your Wishes

Advanced Directives

Advance Directives describe two types of legal documents that let you plan for and communicate the types of treatment that you want, and to refuse treatments that you do not want. These documents are the NY Healthcare Proxy and the NY Living Will.

A healthcare proxy, or medical power of attorney, allows you to appoint a person you trust as your healthcare agent. It goes into effect only after a person’s physician concludes that they are unable to make their own medical decisions. If a person regains the ability to make decisions, the agent cannot continue to act on the person’s behalf.

A living will specifies your wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life. Before your living will can guide medical decision-making, two physicians must certify that you are unable to make medical decisions for various limiting health conditions including a state of permanent unconsciousness.

It is important to have these documents in case of an accident or in cases where a person has been diagnosed with a life-limiting illness. You can download and print the documents from these links:

Hudson Valley Hospice has trained staff who can answer your questions about these documents. Please contact us 845-485-2273.

LIFT UP YOUR VOICE

 

So many residents of underserved communities continue to be marginalized, with disparities in healthcare growing exponentially, especially as they reach the end of life. Hudson Valley Hospice and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State (HPCANYS) want to change this narrative. We would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves and share why we feel it is vital to explain the importance and  benefits of Advance Care Planning to our community. 

Hudson Valley Hospice has provided compassionate end-of-life care and family support to the residents of Dutchess and Ulster Counties for over 45 years. Caring for over 600 patients in our community each and every day, Hudson Valley Hospice works to fulfill its mission to enhance the quality of living for those at the end-of-life and support their loved ones. HPCANYS works to promote the availability and accessibility of quality hospice and palliative care for all persons in New York State confronted with a life-limiting illness. We believe that quality end-of-life care should be available to all persons regardless of ethnicity, race, religion or financial status, but we recognize that like other states in the nation, there are disparities in end-of-life care in New York. One of the ways we can turn this around is to encourage Advance Care Planning conversations which ensure the delivery of end-of-life care driven by the wishes and desires of the patient and their loved ones, not by health care systems and their bias.

Together, it is our goal to encourage individuals and their caregivers, who may have been ignored or marginalized by hospitals, nursing homes and providers in the past. We want to engage in Advance Care Planning. We want to understand the cultural and spiritual barriers that might prevent the conversations that are necessary to complete advance care documents such as Health Care Proxies. We also want to help facilitate the difficult conversations that can be a part of completing these documents and will provide Hudson Valley Hospice’s Advance Care Planning Workbook to help support the process. For those interested, HPCANYS has created an Advance Care Planning educational program using a train-the-trainer format, training individuals in the community to share information and educate others about the importance of Advance Care Planning, collaborating with Hudson Valley Hospice staff to provide the outreach and long term support of the program. 

In November 2023, with the help of HPCANYS and support from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, we launched Lift Up Your Voice!  The Importance of Making Your Health Care Choices Known.  Hudson Valley Hospice continued this work into 2024 and will continue to do so into the future.  We want to partner with you to ensure that these important conversations, which will have an impact for generations to come, happen.

Interested in hosting us for a conversation with your community about the importance of making our healthcare choices known?  What to think about, how to have the difficult conversations, how to document your wishes and ensure your choices are honored? Call or email Erin Stimson today at (845) 240-7609 or email her at stimsone@hvhospice.org.

JOIN US!

Currently Scheduled Sessions:

 

April 10

Boardman Road Branch Library
Thursday, April 10 @ 2:00PM
141 Boardman Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

 

May 8

Pawling Free Library
Thursday, May 8 @ 2:00PM
11 Broad Street, Pawling, NY 12564

Our program:

  • Discuss the importance of making your health care choices known
  • Learn to:
    • Think about who you want to speak for you if you can’t do so for yourself
    • Talk about your wishes at the end of life
    • Write down who you’ve selected and your wishes
    • Share the written documents with loved ones and medical providers

All events feature guest speaker Lisa Wilson, Executive Director of the Hudson Valley Hospice Foundation.

Lisa Wilson 5

Lisa Wilson is a local leader in Advance Care Planning Education & Outreach and serves as an activist in the field of healthcare. She is the Executive Director of the Hudson Valley Hospice Foundation and Vice President of Marketing for Hudson Valley Hospice.