At Honoring Choices Pacific Northwest (PNW), spreading awareness of the importance of advance care planning is essential. Honoring Choices PNW is a joint initiative of WSHA and the Washington State Medical Association. As the initiative’s Senior Director, it is my pleasure to announce that Honoring Choices PNW is debuting a new website to support the provision of end-of-life care that honors personal values and goals. The website is part of a broader, revitalized approach to this work that builds upon the past success of Honoring Choices PNW. It will support the initiative in serving as many individuals as possible going into the future, including:
- Increased awareness and accessibility of advance care planning to the public. Our new website offers simplified language, stories, and an easy way to search for local resources. Ultimately, we want everyone to do three things in regards to advance care planning: Talk about it; write it down; and share it around.
- A simplified, tailored approach. Honoring Choices PNW works with partners to identify priorities, goals and areas of need, and then provides customized support and resources. The new website features a learning portal for partners to obtain the tools they need, when they need them.
- Expanding scope to serious illness. In addition to continuing to focus on upstream advance care planning, Honoring Choices PNW is expanding our services to include communication with seriously ill patients.
- Expanded curriculum. We offer options that can be tailored to audience, setting and organization.
- Expansion into the community. We are dedicated to continuing to spread awareness about advance care planning to as many individuals as possible. Our rebooted social media has taken off with increased engagement on both Facebook (Honoring Choices PNW) and Twitter (@HCPNW), including reposts around the world.
To our partners who are key to our success in spreading awareness and information about advance care planning – thank you! To those who are interested in joining us to fulfill our vision, reach out anytime!
We believe that Washington residents deserve to make informed, autonomous choices about their health care, at all stages of life. We are committed to spreading awareness of the importance of advance care planning so that everyone receives care that honors personal values and preferences at the end of life.
