Advance Care Planning Resources

NYS Department of Health Advance Care Planning 

Aging with Dignity

Five Wishes
Five Wishes was developed as the first advanced care plan (ACP) to address personal, emotional, and spiritual wishes, in addition to medical treatment.

Compassion and Support
Conversations change lives. Know your choices. Share your wishes. Start your conversation today.

Compassionate Conversations
Compassionate Conversations empowers you to transform the conversations into opportunities to bridge divides by providing conflict-resolution skills.

Compassion and Support at the End of Life
Individuals facing serious life-threatening illness and approaching death deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and compassion and to receive care that is focused on the individual’s goals for care. Families need and deserve to receive support. To achieve their goals, individuals need to plan ahead, know their choices, make sound decisions and share their wishes with their loved ones and health care professionals. This web site aims to educate and empower patients, families, health care and other professionals to accomplish this goal.

Family Health Care Decisions Act
Family Health Care Decisions Act (FHCDA) is a law that allows family members to make decisions regarding medical treatment for their loved ones who have lost the ability to make such decisions and who have not prepared an advance directive stating their wishes. The law includes many safeguards to ensure that the patient receives sound medical treatment and that decisions are made consistent with the patient’s wishes and best interests.
In July of 2011, New York State passed a new law expanding the FHCDA to include decisions regarding hospice care. The law allows surrogates to make decisions regarding hospice care regardless of where the decision is made and where the hospice care is provided.

National Institute on Aging:
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/advance-care-planning/choosing-health-care-proxy

Planning for Advanced Cancer Care
This booklet is designed to help people with advanced cancer and their family and caregivers understand the diagnosis and treatment options, discuss these options for care throughout the course of the illness, and find support.

PREPARE
PREPARE is an interactive website called that assists people to think through how health care decisions would be made if they are unable or unwilling to guide their own health care. The site is user friendly, easy to navigate, has helpful videos and a narrator for every aspect of advance care planning one should address. PREPARE walks you through an easy to follow five step process with content that is tailored to each person’s individual needs and preferences.

Respecting Choices:
Respecting Choices | Person-Centered Care