ePAC blog: Talking equity-informed advance care planning
Ashley Mollison and Kara Whitlock, on behalf of the ePAC collaborative, write about the development of new community-informed advanced care planning (ACP) tools.
As we began sharing the ACP with people working in the housing and healthcare system, they talked about their distress of not knowing who to call if someone overdosed or became seriously ill – did their clients have a “chosen” or “street family” that they would want to be part of their care? Did they have any connections with their biological family? What to do with their belongings left in the unit? We heard from hospital social workers that they are often tasked with figuring out who the person’s decision maker is, and they strongly supported a shortened, adapted version that could be used by a multitude of their patients who didn’t have access to mainstream ACP resources.