Patient and Visitor Information
Healthcare Directives
Whether you're 18 or 80, documenting your health care wishes today means your family won't have to make heart-wrenching decisions tomorrow.
We encourage everyone to talk with their family, their friends and their doctor about their health care wishes. Know the options. Decide what's right for you. And be sure to put it in writing.
- Put it in Writing
- Living Will
- Health Care Power of Attorney
- Health Care Directives FAQ
- Health Care Directive Policy
Put it in Writing
The American Hospital Association (AHA) now has a website that helps you put your directives in writing. By clicking here or following the link below, you will access resources to help you put your wishes about end-of-life care into advance directives.
Living Will
In North Carolina, a living will is a document that tells others that you want to die a natural death if you are diagnosed as terminally ill or incurably sick or in a persistent vegetative state from which you will not recover.
In a living will, you direct your doctor to not use heroic treatments that will delay your dying—for example, by using a breathing machine (respirator or ventilator)—or to stop such treatments if they have been started. You can also direct your doctor not to begin or to stop giving you food and water through a tube (artificial nutrition or hydration).
Health Care Power of Attorney
In North Carolina, you can name a person to make medical care decisions for you if you later become unable to decide for yourself. This person is called your “health care agent.” In the legal document you name who you want your agent to be. You can say what medical treatment you would want and what you would not want. Your agent then knows what choices you would make.
You should choose someone you trust and discuss your wishes with the person before you put it in writing.
Health Care Directive Policy
As a health care provider, Stanly Regional Medical Center recognizes the importance of patient choices with regards to treatment. We encourage patients and their representatives to inform us when a patient has an advance directive, i.e., durable health care power of attorney or living will. It is important that you be aware of the policies of Stanly Regional Medical Center with regards to your advance directives:
- As required by law, patients (ages 18 and older) and/or their representative are asked if they have an advance directive upon each admission to inpatient or observation. It is the patient’s and/or their representative’s responsibility to provide to Stanly Regional Medical Center a copy of the advance directive for the patient’s current medical record. Stanly Regional will make a copy from the original upon request.
- It is the patient’s responsibility to retain the original advance directive in a place that can be accessed easily by the patient or the patient’s representative in the event that the patient is hospitalized.
- The patient or the patient’s representative should submit a copy of the advance directive to Stanly Regional Medical Center even if a copy has been provided to the patient’s physician. Because the physician office’s medical record is not a part of the patient’s Stanly Regional Medical Center medical record, a copy should also be provided to the medical center.
- The patient and/or the patient’s representative are encouraged to discuss their advance directives with the physician and/or the health care team. Patients are encouraged to inform their families and/or representatives about the location of their advance directives or to provide them with a copy of the advance directive for future admissions. Advance directives that were previously submitted to Stanly Regional Medical Center may not always be immediately available for reference. As an example, a patient’s previous medical records may be stored on microfilm. Stanly Regional does not have the availability of electronic record-keeping to provide immediate access to the advance directive.
- The attending physician will determine when a patient’s advance directive is to be considered as applicable to the patient’s treatment plan. The medical center’s Ethics Committee may be consulted for assistance as needed.
- Stanly Regional Medical Center will provide assistance, upon request, to patients interested in completing or updating an advance directive. The patient or their representative may contact the case management department Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m at (704) 984-4445 or request the Administrative Representative after office hours. Other persons interested in completing an advance directive may contact Stanly County’s Senior Services Center during normal business hours for assistance.
