Save The Date: Decisions Day Café Mansfield Adult Day Health Center Open House Includes Importance of Healthcare Decision Making

Attleboro, MA – Despite recent gains in public awareness of the need for advance care planning, studies indicate that most Americans have not exercised their right to make decisions about their healthcare in the event that they cannot speak for themselves.

National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) was established to help Americans understand that making future healthcare decisions includes much more than deciding what care they would or would not want; it starts with expressing preferences, clarifying values, identifying care preferences and selecting an agent to express healthcare decisions if patients are unable to speak for themselves.

Make your decisions now, rather than later. Attend Decisions Day Café, Wednesday, April 18th, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at Mansfield Adult Day Health Center, 300 Branch Street, Mansfield, MA. This program is free and open to the public. Decisions Day Café is designed to help families understand issues related to healthcare decisions and to initiate what can often be difficult conversations related to advance care planning. Topics will include: health care proxies, durable power of attorney, living wills, comfort care orders, MOLST (Massachusetts Orders of Life Sustaining Orders), and advance care directives. Speakers will include a physician, hospice nurse, social worker, and legal expert.

For additional information, or to register, please call 508.222.0118, ext. 1308, or email register@communityvna.com.

The NHDD initiative is a collaborative effort of national, state and community organizations committed to ensuring that all adults with decision-making capacity in the United States have the information and opportunity to communicate and document their healthcare decisions.

According to Kathy Trier, Executive Director and CEO, “Community VNA is committed to increasing awareness of the benefits of advance care planning so that community members will be familiar with how to obtain and complete a healthcare power of attorney and/or living will, and will be able to talk to others about their decisions.”

According to the Pew Research Center
• 71% of Americans have thought about their end-of-life treatment preferences,
• 95% have heard of a living will, but
• only 29% had a living will.

Similarly, according to a study conducted by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, only 26.3% of respondents had an advance directive.

“In addition to this event, Community VNA staff are available to answer questions for those who want to learn about advance care planning, to assist with completing advance directives and to honor those wishes when they become clinically relevant,” Trier said.