An advance directive is a “document or documentation allowing a person to give directions about future medical care or to designate another person to make medical decisions if the individual loses decision-making capacity.” Most hospitals and in-patient facilities require advance directives to be a part of a patient’s medical record.

Our surgery center is an out patient facility where only elective out-patient surgery is performed.

Therefore, it is the policy of this surgery center not to acknowledge advance directives of any patient while in this facility, unless specific circumstances arise on an individual basis, which will be discussed in advance with the patient’s physician. In the unlikely event a life-threatening emergency occurred, our policy is to treat, stabilize, and transport the patient to the Lodi Memorial Hospital Emergency Department, where the advance directives of the patient will be considered at that time.