Happy National Healthcare Decisions Day!

Staff Attorney Amy Brown answers questions during a presentation on the importance of Advance Care Planning.

In keeping with it’s emphasis on prevention and education, the Ombudsman visited three New Jersey nursing facilities to mark National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) on April 16, 2012.

NHDD is a day dedicated to promoting advance care planning and discussing health care goals for patients and residents of long-term care facilities.

At each facility, the Ombudsman presented an educational video, Anna's Story, which depicts an elderly woman who winds up with a feeding tube, ventilator, and dialysis, who (through her voiceover) explains that she never wanted this intrusive medical treatment.

The video highlights the importance of advance care planning, most importantly having conversations with loved ones about what kinds of medical treatment residents do or do not want at the end of their lives. Information on do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-hospitalize (DNH) orders, and Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) was distributed at these community meetings.

OOIE's ethics work has been featured recently on New Jersey Spotlight, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and McKnights Long-term Care News.


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OOIE congratulates the following facilities and organizations for their efforts to promote advance care planning as part of National Healthcare Decisions Day:
OOIE presented NHDD programs at:

• House of the Good Shepherd, Hackettstown
• Seabrook Village, Tinton Falls
• Friends Village, Woodstown

OOIE attended events on April 16, 2012 at:

• Bright View Greentree, Marlton, with Assemblyman Herb Conaway and Jerry Rothkoff (elder law attorney) and Samaritan Hospice.
• Pitman Manor, Pitman, with Victoria Dalton (attorney) and Samaritan Hospice
• Spring Oak Assisted Living of Vineland, Vineland, with South Jersey Legal Services

Other agencies that participated in NHDD:

• Masonic Home, Burlington
• NJ Veterans Memorial Home at Paramus
• Willow Creek Rehab and Care Center, Somerset