2024 Patient Safety Awareness Week

It’s Patient Safety Awareness Week!

What does that mean? It means now is the time to evaluate the care you’d like to receive in an emergency medical situation and ensure that you have the protective measures in place to guarantee the treatment you’re provided, should the circumstance arise, is in line with those directives. While the process may seem daunting, it doesn’t haven’t to be. A few tips to get you started:

Familiarize yourself with the terminology. Nationally, greater than seventy-five percent of advance care directives are misinterpreted due to ambiguities in electronic records stemming from a lack of patient understanding of integral terms surrounding this type of planning. Knowing, for example, when and how to effectively use a do not resuscitate order (DNR) is paramount to patient safety. Additional terms to read up on include Advance Directive (ADs); Alternate Proxy; Comfort Care; Do not intubate (DNI) order; Durable power of attorney for health care; Health care proxy (or proxy); Living Will; Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST); and Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST).

Be specific. Advance care directives are all too often misread as pre-emptive refusals of aggressive treatment, but the former in no way necessitates the latter. Should you experience a critical health event that is potentially curable or at least manageable with aggressive treatment and you’d like to receive that treatment, then be sure to let that be known.

Talk to your loved ones. Advance care directives offer peace of mind to not only patients, but also their loved ones, particularly when the patient is experiencing a terminal illness. If you are concerned about being over-resuscitated against your wishes or documentation, take the extra time to share those concerns and your wishes with the loved one(s) who will ultimately be responsible for determining your care in such a situation.