Navigating the Advance Directive Process (AD)
The AD obtained from the UCLA Health website is an important document that ensures that California’s legal framework upholds individuals’ rights to make their own healthcare decisions. This essential document ensures a person’s rights to make their own healthcare decisions within California’s legal framework, in compliance with the state’s Health Care Decisions Law. It is serving as a cornerstone of client independence and self-determination in healthcare. The Advance Directive is a legally enforceable document that enables people to name a reliable healthcare agent, specify their medical care choices, and provide instructions for end-of-life care.
The AD includes clauses that allow people to choose a healthcare agent, communicate their desires for treatment, and think about donating their organs. The AD helps state-law-compliant documentation of persons’ healthcare intentions by providing precise instructions and guidance. This compliance ensures that people’s wishes for medical care are honored and carried out, even if they become incompetent and are unable to express them. Preventive directives are important for assisting different societies in California to make decisions about end-of-life care (Bazargan et al., 2021). The study underscores the need for heightened awareness and understanding of prior instructions, especially for underrepresented groups, to facilitate people’s ability to assert their autonomy over healthcare decisions.
From my perspective, finishing the AD was an extremely taxing and illuminating event. Even though the form offered clear instructions, it took careful thought to address issues such as my final wishes and the designation of a healthcare agent. In all fairness, the prior instructions offer people a well-organized structure and precise guidelines for recording their healthcare choices.
Subjectively, people might nonetheless experience emotional and psychological difficulties when finishing. These difficulties might include worries about burdening loved ones and feelings of anxiety, dread, or uncertainty about the future as patients find it extremely difficult to understand and accept end-of-life issues (Dowling et al., 2020). Preparation for decisions is carried out by non-medical facilitators, such as nurses, who have sufficient time and capacity to contact the patient adequately.
Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
A medical document known as the POLST form specifies precise directives on the administration or non-administration of life-sustaining therapies to individuals with serious diseases. The specific form provides actionable medical directives, whereas the Advance Directive largely focuses on patients’ wishes for future medical treatment (Hickman et al., 2021). They direct medical personnel in caring for patients in accordance with their wishes and current medical circumstances.
When a person has a life-limiting illness, progressive frailty, is approaching the end of life, or all at once, a POLST form must be filled out. After discussions with the patient, their medical provider, and sometimes their relatives or a proxy decision-maker, it is usually filled. When a person has made an informed decision about their preferred course of care and wants to record precise medical directives for emergency medical responders, they should complete the paperwork.
A designated healthcare professional knowledgeable about the patient’s medical history and preferred treatment plan, such as a doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant, can do this. In this way, the individual’s desires and medical requirements are appropriately reflected in the medical instructions listed on the form. To make the document legally binding, the patient’s signature or that of a duly authorized representative is required, as is the medical professional’s signature on the form. To make the POLST even more legitimate, it is advisable to have it certified or notarized.
The POLST is an essential record that specifies life-sustaining care instructions for patients with severe diseases or advanced frailty. After thorough conversations with the patient, their healthcare professional, and, if applicable, their family or a surrogate decision-maker, it should be completed. A registered medical provider may fill out this form, and for it to be considered an official record, the signatures of the individual or their designated representative and the physician are required.
Summary of Comparing Forms
Although both treaties aim to respect consumers’ autonomy, their objectives differ. The AD permits users to appoint a healthcare agent to make choices in their place in the event of incapacitation and to outline their options for healing. Its primary goal is to influence upcoming choices about wellness by considering people’s attitudes, preferences, and beliefs. Conversely, the POLST is a medical record that contains precise directives for life-sustaining therapies for people with severe diseases or extreme frailty. In contrast to the AD, which mainly addresses future desires, the POLST form offers specific medical orders that direct medical personnel in treating patients in accordance with their wishes and current medical conditions.
Registered nurses (RNs) are essential to ensuring that patients’ autonomy rights are respected and maintained in healthcare settings. RNs frequently help people complete advance directives, facilitate conversations about advance care planning, and ensure that medical professionals are aware of and follow patients’ treatment preferences (Molina-Mula & Gallo-Estrada, 2020). Nurses help patients express their wishes for funeral services and fight for their freedom to make informed choices about their healthcare.
In summary, respecting individual liberty and medical preferences is made possible by both records. The POLST form provides precise medical orders for existing medical issues, while the AD offers a broad framework for future healthcare decisions. To ensure that patients’ desires are honored throughout their healing journey, registered nurses play a vital role in conducting advanced care planning discussions and advocating for their ability to make informed choices.
References
Bazargan, M., Cobb, S., Assari, S., & Kibe, L. W. (2021). Awareness of palliative care, hospice care, and advance directives in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of California adults. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 38(6), 601–609.
Dowling, T., Kennedy, S., & Foran, S. (2020). Implementing advance directives—An international literature review of important considerations for nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 28(6), 1177–1190.
Hickman, S. E., Steinberg, K., Carney, J., & Lum, H. D. (2021). POLST is more than a code status order form: Suggestions for appropriate POLST use in long-term care. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 22(8), 1672–1677.
Molina-Mula, J., & Gallo-Estrada, J. (2020). Impact of nurse-patient relationship on quality of care and patient autonomy in decision-making. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(3), 1–24.