National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD), founded in 2008, is a nationwide initiative that provide an opportunity to discuss end-of-life planning. It was created to “inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning.” It’s the perfect day for every adult to start – or continue – conversations with their loved ones about the type of care they would prefer if they were unable to speak for themselves.

The key goal of NHDD is to ‘demystify’ decision-making for healthcare and make the topic of end-of-life planning approachable. NHDD is an inclusive process that focuses first on conversations and choosing a healthcare representative. The final step is completing advance directives that document the decisions made in conversations with loved ones and particularly the healthcare representative. NHDD emphasizes that healthcare decision making is more than creating living wills and advance directives. It’s an ongoing process that “should focus first on conversation and choosing an agent.”

The Conversation Project, an initiative of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has been responsible for NHDD since 2016. To learn more about NHDD, visit theconversationproject.org/nhdd/