Honoring Advance Directives in LTC
Advance Directives are an important tool that guide the providers and families in making decisions about caring for residents in a way that follows the resident's wishes. This session discisses the Advance Directives and challenges that can arise while providing care. Topics discussed include:
* A resident has lost capacity and has an old advance directive
* Staff relationship with resident family/DPOAH
* Conversations with family members and DPOAH about care decisions
* Partial Capacity and decision making
* Goals of care conversations – What Matters Now and What does a good day look like?
* The Dartmouth Dementia Directive
* Where are the forms? AD/PDNR/POLST?
* What if the resident needs to be transferred?
* Life review/legacy conversations
Patricia O'Connor, Author & Janice McDermott - Health Care Decisions Coalition
Patricia O'Connor holds a master's degree in nursing with over-four-decades of experience as a healthcare provider (a nurse practitioner board certified in hospice/palliative care and adult medicine). She worked as head nurse at the first free-standing hospice in the United States during its inaugural six years. She was an instructor for fledgling hospices as they developed across the country. She worked in community hospice settings and as a primary care provider with a sub-specialty of hospice/palliative care consulting for and teaching other primary care providers. Now retired, Pat most recently held the position of a Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner on a specialty team at Concord Hospital. She has used her experience to author the book, Navigating Life's Final Journey, published in 2022. She currently gives presentations throughout the US and internationally.
Janice McDermott currently serves as the Coordinator of the Health Care Decisions Coalition in NH which focuses on promoting advance care planning and POLST. She has 35 years of experience working in hospice and palliative care most recently as Director of Hospice & Palliative Care for the NH Alliance for Home Care, Hospice & Palliative Care. Janice is a member of the Steering Committee for the NH Alliance for Healthy Aging. She helped to create one of the first hospice volunteer programs in the NH and a Community Hospice House that opened in 2000. In 2019, she completed the EOL Doula program at UVM.