Following the 2015 University of Dayton/Miami Valley Hospital Health Care Symposium, community leaders developed a plan to bring the Respecting Choices First Steps® model to the Dayton region. Decide to be Heard, our community’s First Steps program, will ensure healthy adults have access to trained facilitators to help them complete advance directives and have critical conversations with their healthcare agent and loved ones. A regional facilitator worksheet will help people explore their personal goals, values, and beliefs in conjunction with the facilitated interview and encourages each person to choose and engage their health care agent. The trained facilitator can also help the individual complete the Ohio Healthcare Power of Attorney, provide guidance for easy storage and retrieval, and opportunities to update the legal document as a person’s life changes.
Decide to be Heard Timeline
GDACPI has engaged Respecting Choices® for three (3) years to help design and implement pilot sites with health and community-based partners. The first phase of pilot sites will launch in early 2017 and operate for six (6) months. A community-wide “Share the Experience” educational event will take place in Fall 2017 with the Phase I pilot sites sharing lessons learned and include potential Phase II pilot sites for their launch. Additional sites will continue to be added to ensure wide-spread dissemination of trained facilitators throughout the Dayton region.
