Summary of Hospital Policy on Advance Directives

Cape Fear Valley Health System supports a competent adult’s right to make decisions regarding the acceptance or refusal of medical or surgical treatment in accordance with North Carolina law. Cape Fear Valley Health System will provide information about the North Carolina law to all competent adults during the admission process.

Through the admission process, patients will be asked if they have an Advance Directive, in accordance with the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990, and the response will be documented in the patient’s medical record. In order to honor a patient’s Advance Directive, Cape Fear Valley Health System employees will place a copy of the directive in the patient’s medical record. The medical record will also be tagged with a sticker, which will alert hospital personnel that an Advance Directive is present.

Patients who have executed an Advance Directive but do not have it with them upon admission will be informed of the necessity of providing a copy of it before the Health System can honor it. Such patients/families will be instructed to deliver the copy to the unit secretary at the nurse’s station on the unit where the patient is admitted. The unit secretary will include the Advance Directive in the medical record and will tag the medical record.

Cape Fear Valley Health System will not condition the provision of care based upon whether or not an individual has executed an Advance Directive.

For additional information regarding Cape Fear Valley Health System’s policies on Advance Directives, please contact the Patient Relations Department at 609-6120.