At the recent American Geriatrics Society annual scientific meeting, some interesting research about advance care planning was presented. Reading about that research led me to a simple website called PREPARE at prepareforyourcare.org. The founder of this effort is a Rebecca Sudore, MD, UCSF geriatrician and palliative care specialist.
PREPARE addresses five categories as a means to develop a personalized action plan:
* choosing a medical decision maker
* deciding what matters most in life
* choosing flexibility for your decision maker
* telling others about your wishes
* asking doctors the right questions
The website’s text is large, with lots of graphics. The website “speaks” the content, which is great for those with visual impairments but, fortunately, can be turned off. The site is available in both English and Spanish. According to a Medscape article about the site, the language used is at a fifth-grade level.
PREPARE has created easy-to-use advance health care directives for each state. Here’s a link to the California form:
prepareforyourcare.org/assets/
If you haven’t made your advance care plans, this is another great tool.
For those interested, Dr. Sudore discusses her research in a blog post and podcast on the GeriPal website:
www.geripal.org/2017/05/rebecc