Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Emergency Go Binder -Family Caregivers Need One in Pandemic

August 13, 2020

   In An Emergency, I  Panicked

I live in Santa Cruz County, Ca. , where the disaster of COVID stalks us but we had a double disaster with one of the 30 fires begun by lightning strikes all over California. Our fire set the Santa Cruz mountains, with ancient 3000-year-old redwoods, ablaze, and caused 70,000 evacuations ,as the firefighters did not have enough fire personnel to fight the fire. There were so many fires statewide that all firefighters in the state were not enough to fight the blazes. In addition to the horror, the fast-spreading fire, our three assigned planes to drop water on the inferno, could not fly as smoke and fog prevented it. They went to other California fires.

I Had No Grab and GO, Binder

When all this was announced by emergency alerts we were told to prepare to evacuate too. In spite of just teaching how to put together a go binder for COVID- I had no go binder myself. I had no list of what I would take in an emergency from a 5 bedroom house with multiple family heirlooms, original art by children, grandchildren, and now famous friends, I had never scanned the multiple  photographs of our family in frames to GOOGLE PHOTOS  all over the house and those critical important documents like our trust, birth certificates, passports, insurance info in filing to add a go binder. I  never made a GO Binder. I am doing it now when the fire is 30% contained. 

Prepare for Double Disasters Now

In emergency situations, people sometimes do not think rationally like me. We never know how we are going to react in an emergency until it actually happens. In order to prepare for any situation, hurricanes & COVID, Fires &COVID- creating a grab-and-go binder should be an important part of your shelter in place plan for aging friends or relatives.

With COVID,the older person who is sheltering in place, as safe as the family and elder have been, can still contract COVID and be rushed to the hospital in an emergency. But on top of COVID other emergencies like storms wildfires, floods happen on the top of the pandemic. Think of this summer where hurricanes have already spun up the east coast, making it a double cataclysm of elders’ and family caregivers’ lives.

What to put in Go- Binder

You want and binder with all the emergency contacts, documents like advanced directives, DNR power of attorney and family contacts, You the family cannot physically go into the hospital or evacuate but this Go binder can take your place. With important information about your family member when they are admitted without you by their side. Your go- binder should contain your family members’ most important information and documents. This will include.

  • Medical information
  • Emergency Contact List
  • Advanced Directives 
  • Critical medical, insurance, social security, Trust/will docs                                                                                                             
  • Check out The new 5th edition of my GCM Operations Manual with  5 new COVID-19 Coaching products to use with Telehealth to Assist Family Caregivers to guide older Loved ones to:

  • Shelter in Place in Long Distance Family
  • Shelter in Place in Long Local Family
  • Recover at  Home If Do not enter the Hospital
  • Recover after discharge from the hospital in Long Distance Family
  • Recover after discharge from the hospital if Local Family
  • Find Out More Below

GCM Manual New 5th edition

Filed Under: Advanced Directives and Covid-19, advanced directives& COVID-19, Aging, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Disaster Plan, ALCA Products for COVID_19, Blog, Coronavirus Coaching, Coronavirus emergency plan, Coronavirus safety elders, coronavirus shut down, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, COVID, COVID-19 & Care Management, COVID-19 & Wildfire, COVID-19 &Shelter in Place Plan, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Emergency Go Binder, COVID-19 Emergency Plan, Covid-19 GCM Products, COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Plan, COVID-19 Plus Hurricane, COVID-19 Recover at Home Plan, elder care manager, Emergency Go Binder, Emergency Plan, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: 5th edition GCM OPERATIONS MANUAL, ADVANCED DIRECTIVES & COVID-19, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, COVID GCM Procedures, COVID- 19 GO Binder, COVID-19 PRODUCTS, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVID-19& LONG DISTANCE CARE, crisis with aging parents, geriatric care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, parent care crisis

Advanced Directives AND COVID-19- Do You Know When To Initiate in the Pandemic

May 5, 2020

Covid-19 Makes Signing Advanced Directives Critical

Advanced directives are even more critical with COVID-19 patients, who are often elders. The New York Times had a story about an older woman who was suffering from Covid-19 When she entered the hospital no one asked about advanced directives. After several weeks on a ventilator, the hospital asked about advanced directives, she had none. All her elderly sisters could recall was what she had said about dying when she was young.

WHEN DO YOU DISCUSS ADVANCE DIRECTIVES?

 

Advanced Directives should be part of your initial psychosocial assessment. Once the COVID-19 diagnosis is known with an elderly client, the care manager who has added end of life services to their agency is often the one who will initiate and guide advance care planning discussions. As difficult as these discussions may be, the burden on the family is significantly lessened if decisions about advance care planning are made before the client’s condition worsens.

Hopefully, this has already been done but many people put it off for fear of death. A recent study found that less than 50% of severely or terminally ill patients had an advance directive in their medical record.

Advance Directives

 Advance directives are legal documents that allow clients to make decisions about their health care and finances in advance of when they are not mentally or physically able to do so. These documents must be signed, dated, and witnessed naming another person to make decisions for you.

Your job as a care manager is the make sure the dying client has these documents:

• A durable power for an attorney for healthcare 

• A living will 

• A do not resuscitate order DNR (efforts to restart the heart after it has stopped 

If the client does not have these legal documents and wishes to create

them, the Geriatric Care Manager will suggest that the documents be put in place with the oversight and consultation of an elder law attorney. But if hospitalization is imminent, getting the patient to consider signing with legal consultation maybe your own option, with the family’s permission. 

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Join Me in My Latest Webinar About Products For GCM Clients Especially Covid 19 

How to Sell VIP Clients a Menu of Products They Want To Buy During COVID-19 & After

When May 7th

Time 2:PM PST -3:30 PM PST

Learn in this webinar:

Why Sell VIP Products rather than Geriatric Care Management
Why VIP GCM Clients prefer GCM Products
How to Develop a 4 Season Menu of Products

VIP Products to Add to your Menu of Services

VIP services to Add to your Products

Covid -19 Products to offer now

Covid-19 Assurances & Technology You Must add to Your Products Now and in the future

 Sign Up

 

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Filed Under: Advanced Directives, Advanced Directives and Covid-19, advanced directives& COVID-19, Aging, Aging Community & Covid-19, Aging deaths, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Products for COVID_19, Covid 19, Covid-19 Death Nursing Homes, Covid-19 Nursing Home, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager Tagged With: Advanced Directives, ADVANCED DIRECTIVES & COVID-19, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, coronavirus and seniors, COVID-19 Deaths, COVID-19 deaths SNF's, death and dying in COVID-19, durable power of attorney, end of life, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

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