National Healthcare Decisions Day

Ohio’s Hospice Encourages Community Members to Make Health Decisions and End-of-Life Wishes Known on National Healthcare Decisions Day

On National Healthcare Decisions Day, Ohio’s Hospice is joining Decide to be Heard, a local initiative to facilitate discussions to help people complete advance directives, to encourage community members of any age or health status to have a conversation with their loved ones about end-of-life care and their personal healthcare wishes through advance care planning.

National Healthcare Decisions Day, which is celebrated annually on April 16, was created to start a conversation about advance care planning in the event that individuals could not speak for themselves due to a life-limiting health issue. According to a recent study published in Health Affairs, only one-third of Americans have completed an advance care directive to outline their end-of-life wishes.

Ohio’s Hospice launched Decide to be Heard as an initiative in 2015 to start a conversation in the community about plans for care at the end of life. Decide to be Heard joined forces with a hospital-funded advanced care planning initiative and now operates through a partnership involving Kettering Health Care, Premier Health, Ohio’s Hospice, and GDAHA. These four entities, along with the University of Dayton and Wright State University, make up a community-based steering committee providing support and guidance for the initiative.

Decide to be Heard helps individuals throughout the community with advance care planning. They can learn how to document their future healthcare decisions and provide instructions for their medical care. Visit DecidetobeHeard.org to help approach a discussion about end-of-life wishes with loved ones.