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Monthly E-Newsletter
December 2019

First Steps® ACP Facilitator Training

Healthcare professionals and community volunteers alike are invited to participate in this evidence-based training to become a certified Advance Care Planning (ACP) Facilitator. As an ACP Facilitator, you have the opportunity to assist individual's through the Advance Care Planning process and help them define what matters most to them.

Monday, February 10, 2020

Friday, May 22, 2020

Monday, September 14, 2020

Monday, November 16, 2020
RN CE's available for all training's and webinars.
SW CE's are pending

For questions regarding bringing an ACP Training to your workplace or to register for an upcoming date, please contact:

(616) 421-4840
Advanced versus First Step Conversations: What’s the difference?
L to R: Kim Harper, David Blauw, Nicky Lewis, Rose Seavolt (instructor), Rachel Sarpong, Karen VanderLaan and Bob Johnson, Jr. Not pictured: Carol Robinson
The “First Step” conversation is appropriate for any person, 18+ who is either in good health or has a chronic, but stable, health condition. It is a wonderful tool to help people start to describe what “quality of life” looks like for them, appoint an effective patient advocate as a “just in case” scenario, then document those choices in an Advance Directive.

The “Advanced Step” conversation is designed for people who are diagnosed with a new, serious illness/injury, or have a condition that is now rapidly advancing. The conversation can either be with the person experiencing the illness, or with the person’s chosen patient advocate (if the person has lost decision-making capacity).

Recently, MCM trained 7 current First Steps facilitators as Respecting Choices Advanced Step ACP Facilitators. These individuals are trained to provide a more in-depth conversation about various possible treatment choices and update documents to provide a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form and/or a Scope of Treatment Preferences form. These forms are vital for the person’s physician(s), healthcare team (including in skilled nursing facilities/long-term care organizations, etc.) to be sure the treatment offered matches a person’s wishes.
Congratulations to our new facilitators!

Please contact us if you or someone you care about is ready for this level of conversation.
Event Recap: Green Burial: What You Need to Know Before You Go!

Did you ever notice the “green burial” option on the MCM Advance Directive form? What does it mean, anyway?

Recently MCM hosted a Green Burial event to explain this recent, yet ancient, practice. Our local experts included Mr. Paul Uzarski from Heritage Life Funeral Homes, and Mr. Ron Zartman of Ridgeview Memorial Gardens. Interestingly, embalming in the US didn’t begin until the Civil War era, when President Lincoln’s body was embalmed to survive the 2 week train ride from Washington, DC to Illinois. Thus began requests from the families of other Civil War dead to have their soldiers embalmed and sent home for burial. One of the main components for body preservation was arsenic. Arsenic does not “break down” with body decomposition, thus can become a source of water contamination.

Cremation has gained popularity, now outnumbering burial in the US. For those who choose cremation there are now green urns that decompose (made of Himalayan salt, pressed raw paper, etc.), special paper envelopes for water burial, and even the option to have one’s ashes placed in a reef off the coast of Florida!

Cremation, however, is not totally “green”, as it still has an environmental carbon footprint. True green burial is returning the body to the earth, without preservatives or synthetic clothing. Paul showed us several shroud options (one produced by a former Hollywood costume designer!), and ways to “go green” within a traditional cemetery. Ron is proprietor of a green cemetery, meaning the body goes straight into the ground in either a shroud or a natural casket that can decompose (non-treated wood, wicker, etc.). There is so much more to learn about this interesting topic.

Watch for our next event in April, 2020 during the 50 th anniversary of Earth Day!
A Meaningful Gift for Your Loved Ones

Our Community Coordinator, Carol Robinson, was recently speaking with a college student. The student had been studying advance care planning and the importance of having a conversation with loved ones about #WhatMattersMost when seriously and/or terminally ill. The student said, “I may be a poor student, but the conversation won’t cost me anything. I need to talk with my parents about what I would want…and I need to know what they want if they were in the same situation.” This holiday season, give the -
gift that costs you nothing but time. Not sure how to begin Check out “The Conversation Project”

2020 Moves MCM into a New Era!

Great Lakes Health Connect (GLHC) adopted MCM as a wholly-owned subsidiary in August 2017. In the new year, GLHC will formally merge with Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN). What does this mean for MCM? We will have even greater options to store and retrieve Advance Directives for our participants. MiHIN’s main office is in Lansing, but MCM staff will continue to work in GR.

Interested in exploring how you can volunteer with MCM?



Our free community events are made possible by our generous donors. To sponsor an event in your community,
please contact us.


Would you like to sponsor an ACP education event?

Our Impact
Thanks to our partners around the state who register their patient and client Advance Directives to Great Lakes Health Connect, we now have over 60,000 documents available in the Community Health Record! Registering these documents makes them available (only as appropriate) to a state-wide network of hospitals, primary, specialty, and allied care organizations, ensuring that healthcare providers will have immediate access to their patient's wishes.
Click here to learn more about registering your patient and client documents or to schedule your ACP appointment today!
Making Choices Michigan | Office: (616) 421-4840 | MakingChoicesMichigan.org