Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership

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Because Your Participation Matters -THANK YOU to 2010 BGHCC participation award-winners

 
Dr. Bill Gregory Award
Nephrology & Hypertension Specialists
 
Government Sector Award
City of Dalton

Corporate Teams Participation Award
Division I:
1st Place - Mohawk Industries
2nd Place - Hamilton Health Care System
3rd Place - Shaw Industries
Division II:
1st Place - Advanced Insurance Strategies
2nd Place - HealthOne Alliance
3rd Place - Cohutta Banking Company
 
School Participation Award
1st Place - Northwest Elementary
2nd Place - Westwood Elementary
3rd Place - Brookwood Elementary
CRITICAL Conditions
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Imagine that you are lying in a hospital bed unconscious and not able to speak for yourself. Decisions need to be made about medical treatments to prolong your life. How would your loved ones feel about having to make these decisions? Would they know what you want?
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    Those who have faced this situation can tell you how hard it is.  They will also tell you how much they wish they knew what their loved one wanted.  This is the reason for our end-of-life project entitled CRITICAL Conditions.
    CRITICAL Conditions aims to help relieve families of this uncertainty by encouraging people to decide long before the event what kind of medical care they wish to receive at the end-of-life and to communicate their decisions to their loved ones and their physicians.  This is certainly not an easy or a comfortable topic to think about and discuss; however, people will be given materials to help them think through different medical situations and to begin talking with their families.
    An easy to read and understand document called the Directive for Final Health Care is available to people so that they can legally record their wishes.  In addition, community counselors are trained to help families as needed with this process.  Family workshops can be scheduled to help educate people about their right to make these important health care decisions.
    Not only does CRITICAL Conditions encourage people to discuss final health care decisions with their families, but it also opens the lines of communication between patients, their families and their physicians.  According to recent studies, nearly one-third of terminally ill patients prefer not to be resuscitated, but their doctors frequently do not know this.  Half of patients able to communicate in the last three days of life said they were in severe pain. Improving death and the dying experience for people in our community requires communication and cooperation among everyone involved.
    In addition to easing the personal anguish felt by families, it also helps our community to use scarce health care resources more wisely.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year in a futile effort to prolong life not only beyond the body's ability to live but also beyond the patient's desire to live.  Technology can sustain life, but it can be a life void of quality and many times dignity.