Looking Ahead launches fall series of advance care planning workshops

What health care would you want if you couldn’t speak for yourself? Do you hold strong beliefs or values that may impact the last chapter of your life? Do you wish to make it easier and less stressful for your family to make healthcare decisions on your behalf?

These are a few of the important questions asked by Looking Ahead Inc.’s certified advance care planning (ACP) specialists during My Wishes Workshops™ held at the nine Bucks County Housing Authority residential facilities for low-income adults.

“Our My Wishes Workshops process,” explains Looking Ahead’s executive director Betsy Payn, MSN, an eldercare nurse, “adapts the one-on-one conversational model we’ve been using to enable us to more efficiently educate participants and help them complete the important documents. Our workshops provide answers, address concerns and fears and sensitively guide participants through forms that are often intimidating and confusing without our professional assistance.

“Our objective is to increase the number of people in our communities who have current advance directives where they can actually do what they’re designed to do: get you the care and treatment you want if you can no longer speak for yourself.”

Advance care planning (ACP) is the process during which individuals consider, discuss, document, share and file their personal healthcare choices for loved ones and healthcare providers to follow should they be unable to speak for themselves. These choices are recorded in a document called an advance directive, which incorporates both a living will and a durable healthcare power of attorney naming the individual’s healthcare agent.

“We take the time at each workshop to copy the completed advance directives—giving copies to individuals to share with family and healthcare agents. We then follow up within days by mailing the advance directives to the hospitals and primary care physician, thus confirming that the documents are filed for future access.”

Established in 2014 by Payn and Veronica E. Coyne, MD, a retired internist and former Doylestown Hospital Hospice medical director, Looking Ahead is a nonprofit community service organization that delivers community education and planning support for individuals’ end-of-life healthcare choices.

Looking Ahead’s process is based on the “gold standard” for advance care planning: The Respecting Choices® conversation model developed over the past quarter century by Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin—where virtually every adult has an advance directive on file with their hospital and primary doctor and shared with loved ones. Statistics show that over 97% of La Crosse residents receive the care they want at end of life.

Looking Ahead’s goal is to deliver ACP services and education to all members of the community regardless of health or income status. Staffed by medical professionals who are all certified ACP facilitators, the nonprofit is supported by grants and contributions.

To learn more, or to schedule a community education presentation or My Wishes Workshops™ for your faith group, business organization or other group: Betsy@LookingAheadACP.org, 267.544.9580, LookingAheadACP.org.