This National Healthcare Decisions Day, Make Your Personalized Care Plan with My Living Voice

Vital Decisions Celebrates April 16, a Day Dedicated to Advance Care Planning and Empowering All Americans to Express Their Wishes for Medical Care

When an individual needs urgent medical care, healthcare professionals need to know what interventions a person wants — and does not want.

In this COVID-19 pandemic, the moment to create or update an advance directive for medical care has never been greater. Who will speak for you if you cannot speak for yourself? How will that person know what decisions to make for you in a crisis?

April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day. Vital Decisions is now making access to My Living Voice, an advance care planning tool, free and open to the public — because advance care planning is too important to be contained in just one day. Visit vitaldecisions.mylivingvoice.com.

“In this moment, our work is very personal and very relevant to everyone. We can help our friends and family be prepared for hard choices they might face,” said Leah Puccio, Vital Decisions’ CEO. “It’s time for everyone to talk about what matters most, and do advance care planning. The people closest to you need to know what role they may play in your healthcare decisions. The conversation starts with who you would choose to make decisions for you if you were unable to speak for yourself.”

For 10 years, Vital Decisions has been empowering individuals and their caregivers to align medical care with what matters most in terms of personal values and goals. The company created My Living Voice to make advance care planning and documentation simple and effective, grounded in clinical excellence.

My Living Voice is an online platform that guides individuals to:

• Designate a healthcare proxy: “Who do you want to make decisions for you, if you’re unable to make your own decisions?”
• Express their values and goals for care: “What makes life worth living, and what do you consider an acceptable quality of life, what matters most?”
• Indicate preferences for life-extending treatment: “What medical interventions do you want, under what conditions?”
• Create an Advance Directive for Medical Care: “How will you ensure your wishes are honored?”

It takes about 10 minutes to complete an advance care plan with My Living Voice. Embedded educational resources explain medical terms and the process of advance care planning.

My Living Voice is designed with great intention to activate planning and conversations with both medical care providers and with the loved ones who advocate for care. It simplifies and demystifies a poorly understood process and makes it easy to meet state-specific requirements.

Vital Decisions is proud to join so many other committed organizations in the movement of National Healthcare Decisions Day. For more information visit https://theconversationproject.org/nhdd/