Advance Care Planning - Patients & Families

Advance Care Planning is a process of planning for future medical care in case you are unable to make your own decisions. It is a continual process and not merely a document or isolated event.

Advance Care Planning assists you in preparing for a sudden unexpected illness, from which you expect to recover, as well as the dying process and ultimately death. Advance care planning is a gift to you and your family. It allows you to maintain control over how you are treated and to ensure that you experience the type of care and the type of death that you desire.

The Community-wide End-of-life/Palliative Care Initiative developed an evidence-based two-step approach to advance care planning that includes:

Community Conversations on Compassionate Care (CCCC), an award-winning nationally recognized, evidenced based program developed to help individuals over 18 years of age complete health care proxies using storytelling and Five Easy Steps:

• CCCC Advance Care Planning Booklet
• Five Easy Steps
• CCCC Videos
• ACP for Patients & Families
• ACP for Professionals
  •   Advance Care Planning:  Life Expectancy of More than One Year
• New York State Health Care Proxy
• New York State Living Will
• Other State-Specific Forms
• Electronic Registry - Advance Directive
  Make sure your decision is available whenever doctors might need it!
  
  • Rochester-area residents can add advance directives to their medical records through the Rochester RHIO patient portal at RochesterRHIO.org
  • Assuring Your Wishes based in Rockland County
  • Residents in some states can add state-specific advance directives to electronic registries, if available.
    

Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST), a program designed to improve the quality of care seriously ill patients receive at the end of life based on effective communication of patient wishes, documentation of medical orders on a brightly colored pink form and a promise by health care professionals to honor these wishes (View PDF):

• MOLST for Patients & Families
• MOLST for Professionals
• MOLST Training Center
• MOLST and Family Health Care Decisions Act (FHCDA)
• MOLST and FHCDA Webinar Series 
• NYSDOH-5003 MOLST Form
• Advance Care Planning:  Life Expectancy of Less than One Year
• Other State-Specific Forms
• Electronic Registry - POLST Paradigm Programs
  • New York State eMOLST
  • Oregon POLST Registry