The Cypress Health Region is hoping to provide assistance to patients, long term care residents, and the general public in planning for future health care choices that will affect themselves and their families. With this in mind, they will be implementing an enhancement to the current advance care planning process called the ‘My Voice’ program.

Planning for future health care choices is a wise thing for all capable adults to do. Life threatening illness or injury can happen at any time and it is important that everyone seizes the opportunity to make informed decisions about their care and discuss their wishes with family members and significant others.

Advance Care Planning (otherwise known as a living will, advance directive, or health directive) is a legal set of directions that an individual develops for her/his own medical care, in the event that you are too ill or injured to communicate these wishes or make one’s own decisions. The instructions and information in the plan would only be used to give direction (that is, your ‘voice’) for your treatment if you are not capable of speaking for yourself.

The Cypress Health My Voice Committee was created in spring 2014 to develop an enhancement to the current advance care planning process that the region had in place. The objectives were to research some of the best practices in advance care planning, ensure that the recommended practices met the Accreditation Canada guidelines, and that the provincial legislation was met. The Committee consulted with the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region who had implemented the ‘My Voice’ program and partnered with them to adopt the program to meet the needs of Cypress Health residents.

‘My Voice’ will be implemented throughout the entire Cypress Health Region’s communities, programs, and services over the next several months. However, the community of Leader was selected to serve as the initial rollout community.

Training and education on the program’s elements will be provided to Leader staff from the primary health care clinic, hospital, long term care, and home care services on February 12th. Following this education, they will be implementing the processes of the program with community members and patients as they arrive for the various health care services available in the community.

Deb Sekerak is the health region’s Palliative Care Coordinator and serves as a member of the My Voice Committee, and she is looking forward to the roll out of the program after extensive planning efforts have taken place. “Advance care planning is very important as it allows people to have a voice and make their medical wishes known. It is often something that is ignored and only addressed when a person becomes very ill,” said Sekerak. “We need to change this, as this is one of those important conversations for you to have with your family while you are healthy and make those wishes known to your loved ones.”

The roll out of the program is going to focus on several key messages:

•  THINK about your values, beliefs, and what is important to you.
•  TALK to those close to you about this.
•  ACT by informing your health care team about your wishes.

Information about the ‘My Voice’ program will be available at all of the Leader health care facilities and offices. In addition, the Committee is exploring the options of hosting public information sessions to all individuals or interest groups to learn more about advance care planning, the benefits involved, and how you can complete a formal ‘advance care plan’ to make your wishes known. Interest in these sessions can be expressed to the Leader Primary Health Care Clinic team or to Leader Health Services Manager Sherry Miller.

The Cypress Health Region encourages the residents of Leader and surrounding areas to become more familiar with the importance of advance care planning and the ‘My Voice’ program. The feedback received from the community’s residents and staff will be used to enhance the program for further implementation into other communities in the coming months.