Ten! Tenth birthdays generally involve ice cream and lots of balloons. Tenth anniversaries are marked with gifts of aluminium and tin. Here at MyDirectives, we are celebrating our tenth birthday in conjunction with a great partner, Nathan Kottkamp and the National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) team.
To mark our milestone event, we’re sharing our top ten success stories about people empowered by digital advance care plans.
1. A young man who told us he felt “great” after using our video messaging feature to document his organ donation priorities so that his parents, who didn’t support organ donation, would be more likely to support his decision in the event of an emergency.
2. A busy nurse who was relaxed when she had surgery of her own because instead of trying to create a new document during her ordeal, she sent her MyDirectives plan digitally to the ER staff in seconds.
3. The joy shared by an over 60-year-old gentleman who sat with his over 90-year-old father and completed their MyDirectives plans together, a process that brought the father and son closer together.
4. An emergency room doctor empowered by health data found on an unresponsive patient’s iPhone lock screen to instantly access the digital advance care plan to guide treatment.
5. A loving husband expressing gratitude to MyDirectives after his wife passed away and credited the clarity and accessibility of her MyDirectives plan with her getting the care that she wanted.
6. An astute ER nurse and hospital medical ethics director who used the MyDirectives audit system to stop a fraud case by verifying that an unresponsive patient’s newly created MyDirectives plan was, in fact, created by someone else after the person became unresponsive.
7. A young woman who was pleased to have a better hospital experience – complete with the food, flowers and music she wanted – and felt confident that she healed faster and was discharged sooner because she was happy her voice was being heard.
8. An eager medical student who was required to create a MyDirectives plan as part of a course and was so inspired by the ability to help people make their voices heard that he changed his degree and career specialization.
9. A hospital chaplain who uses MyDirectives daily because, as he says, “There’s no way I could handle the volume of cases and help people create such high-quality advance care plans any other way.”
10. And, finally, we salute the many families across the United States and now in over 40 other countries who have written to us to tell us their personal stories of empowerment and confidence now that their voices can be heard.
This join us in celebrating these ten years by telling us your story. Tweet @MyDirectives with #NHDD to tell your story.
