End of Life Planning
Having conversations with family, health care professionals, and close friends are important for planning your end-of-life care.
Organizations like PCOA can help you begin those conversations and give you reliable information on filling out your advanced directives.
In addition, these plans allow you to have the care and treatment you would want if you no longer can make the decisions on your own. The sub-categories here will assist you in this process.
In the future, the Arizona Advance Directive Registry will be hosted and maintained by a healthcare organization called Health Current. As a result, a person’s end-of-life care plans will be accessible by healthcare professionals as part of their electronic health record.
Body & Organ Donation
To be an organ donor, you can contact the Donor Network of Arizona, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), or you can simply indicate your decision to be an organ donor on your driver’s license.
If you wish to be a body or organ donor, be sure to discuss this with your loved ones and doctor ahead of time. Body donation programs will not accept bodies over the objections of loved ones. It is not necessary to include your decision to be an organ or body donor in your will.
Certain conditions may make a body unsuitable for donation, such as hepatitis, HIV, AIDS, MRSA, tuberculosis, major surgery or trauma, obesity, suicide, organ donation, objections of loved ones, or delay in the notification of death.
The length of time a donated body is generally used is from a few weeks to two years, depending on the scientific purpose(s) it is used for. Common uses of a donated body can include: doctor training, developing new surgical procedures, testing of new medical devices such as joint replacements, and research into numerous diseases and conditions including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, cancer, and schizophrenia.
See the glossary for descriptions of all categories
