Advance Care Planning

Starting a conversation with your patients about their wishes and goals of care may not be easy, but it’s an important process to go through. As a health care provider, you need to know what the answers are to some critical questions, such as:

• If something happened to your health and you became unable to speak, who would make decisions on your behalf? (Substitute Decision-Maker)
• Would you like to be put on life support? For how long?
• Where would you prefer to spend your last days? At home, in a long-term care facility, hospital or hospice?

Helping your patients start advance care planning and initiating the conversation will get them thinking about what their wishes may be for end-of-life care. Having these communicated and in place will greatly contribute to their quality of life and of their loved ones if/when they become palliative. It’s important that they participate in this conversation and share their wishes now, while they are able to do so.

Here is a helpful tool that provides examples of questions you can ask your patients and phrases you can use to get the conversation started:

Speak Up Campaign Workbook – Ontario Edition

Speak Up! Ontario Online Workbook

Speak Up! Ontario Primary Care Patient Template (NEW)

For more information on advance care planning, visit our Resources page.

If you would like to book a presentation on Advance Care Planning, please Request A Speaker.