NYACP, along with other national, state and community organizations, is leading a massive effort to highlight the importance of advance healthcare decision-making—an effort that has culminated in the formal designation of April 16 as National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD), and the week of April 15-22 as National Healthcare Decisions Week.
To raise awareness about the importance of advance care planning, the website NHDD.org was created with information and tools for the public to talk about future healthcare decisions and execute written advance directives in accordance with applicable state laws. New York specific resources can be found on the NY Department of Health website.
Although several states have engaged in advance directives awareness events and numerous organizations have devoted substantial time and money to improving education about advance healthcare planning, only a small minority of Americans has executed an advance directive. NHDD seeks to address this issue by focusing attention on advance healthcare planning from a variety of directions simultaneously.