Advance Health-Care Directives
Your Right to Make Decisions Affecting Your Care
Grand View Hospital honors your right to make decisions regarding your health care. We encourage you to think in advance about what treatment you would accept or refuse if you had an end-stage medical condition or became permanently unconscious and could not express your wishes.
One way to make sure your wishes would be followed in such an event is to have written instructions, called advance health-care directives, that explain what kind of treatment you would want.
Three Types of Advance Health-Care Directives in Pennsylvania
Three types of advance health-care directives related to health-care choices are recognized in Pennsylvania. They are all legal documents that enable health-care personnel to obtain information about your wishes should you not be able to communicate. Usually, these are written in advance of serious illness and state your choices for health care, or name someone to make those choices if you become unable to make decisions.
- Living Will: A legal paper that spells out the kind of life-prolonging medical care you would want-or would not want-if you had an end-stage medical condition or became permanently unconscious and unable to make your own decisions.
- Power of Attorney for Health-Care Decisions: A signed and dated document that gives another person the legal right to make decisions regarding your health care if you are not able to make such decisions yourself. This person will have access to your medical records.
- Combination Document: A document that incorporates features of both a living will and a health-care power of attorney.
You may revoke an advance directive at any time. Any changes or revocations should be signed and dated and you should give copies to your family and doctor.
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