You make choices on a daily basis—choices about where you want to live, who you want to marry, your career, your home, your life.

Perhaps one of the most important choices facing you is your choice for future medical care.

Who decides when enough is enough?

You do. Or at least you should.

You should decide about the kind of care you want while you are capable of making your own decision.

At St. Peter’s Hospital, we respect the right of an individual to make choices according to your own wishes. Five Wishes provides an opportunity to document your personal request for your own health care choices now and through end-of-life.

The Five Wishes Advance Directive booklet is the tool of choice used at St. Peter’s Hospital to help patients with the completion of Advance Directives.

Five Wishes talks about your personal, emotional, and spiritual needs as well as your medical wishes. It lets you choose the person you want to make healthcare decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself.

An Advance Directive is...

• a plan, indicating preference for future healthcare decisions if you are unable to make decisions.
  
• generally a written document.
  
• a legal document such as a:
  
  • Living Will
    
  • Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare
    
  • Comfort One (a do not resuscitate order specific to the State of Montana)
    

A Living Will is . . .

A written document that is signed, dated and witnessed. It contains instructions that tell physicians and family members what life-sustaining treatment one does or does not want at some future time if a person becomes unable to make decisions.

A Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare is . . .

A legal document in which you (the principal) appoint someone else (an agent) to make your decisions in the event you become incapable of making decisions.

Also known as:

• Healthcare Agent
  
• Healthcare Proxy
  
• Healthcare Surrogate
  
  

The Comfort One is . . .

• A separate medical order obtained from and signed by the person’s physician.
  
• A set of standard patient care protocols, to be followed by emergency medical services personnel. These emphasize that the patient will receive palliative (comfort) and supportive care but not resuscitative measures.
  
  

Life-support treatment means any medical procedure, device or medication that prolongs life. The following are definitions of life-support treatments . . .

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ~A medical procedure involving external chest compression, administration of drugs and electrical shock, used in an effort to restore the heartbeat.

Ventilator ~A breathing machine attached to a tube that is placed into your windpipe, when you are not able to breathe on your own.

Dialysis ~A dialysis machine is used to cleanse the blood when the kidneys cannot function normally.

Intravenous (IV) Line ~A tube placed in a vein that is used to administer fluids, blood, or medication.

Nutritional Support and Hydration ~ Using IVs or feeding tubes to supply food (nutrients) or water when you are unable to eat or drink.

Antibiotics ~Drugs used to fight infection (pneumonia, for example).

You should be the one to decide if life support treatment is consistent with your goals and values.

1. The person I want to make care decisions for me when I can’t.
   
2. The kind of medical treatment I want or don’t want
   
3. How comfortable I want to be.
   
4. How I want people to treat me.
   
5. What I want my loved ones to know.
   
   

1. We will initiate the conversation.
   
2. We will provide assistance with advance care planning.
   
3. We will make sure plans are clear.
   
4. We will maintain and retrieve plans.
   
5. We will appropriately follow plans.
   

Planning services...

• All referring sources will be honored.
  
• For information, contact Palliative Care Coordinator Jan Jahner, R.N., at (406) 447-2533 or the St. Peter’s Hospital Care Management Department, (406) 444-2285
  
• Appointments may be scheduled as needed for one-on-one facilitations.
  

St. Peter’s Hospital is an independent, community-based organization committed to the values of service, respect, stewardship, and accountability. St. Peter’s partners with its patients, community, and medical staff to provide exceptional and compassionate healthcare.