Advance Care Planning – Making Life Decisions

September 2018: We had exciting news: the 16-page Kokua Mau booklet “A Guide to Advance Care Planning: Making Life Decisions” iwas re-printed.

Note from 2021: We have run out of printed copies. The PDF file below is of course still available.

With updated wording, the new booklet reflects 2018 changes to hospital and community based palliative care programs and updated phone numbers. A big big mahalo to Mountain-Pacific Quality Health for their generous sponsorship of printing 40,000 copies!

This 16-page booklet “A Guide to Advance Care Planning: Making Life Decisions” by Kōkua Mau is designed to help you make informed advance care planning decisions for when you are seriously ill. Many of the ideas and terms explained in this booklet might be new to you but are very common in medical settings and are important for you to know.

Although modern medicine helps many people lead longer and healthier lives, it has limits. Many of us may fear that medical technology could help us to live longer but leave us dependent on others, in pain, and unable to think or make decisions for ourselves.

This booklet list resources and organizations (with phone numbers) you can call. In this booklet you will find answers in plain English about subjects hard to talk about or to address. It talks about questions you and you loved ones might have such as:

Download Options for the 16 page document (these files are optimized to be read on the computer, phone and tablet screen):

  • 2 per page (8-page document, formatted to read on the screen, with page 1 & 2, 3 & 4, etc.)
  • One per page (easier to read on handheld devices)
  • 2 per page optimized for printing (larger file size 2.1MB). Please note: this is still a file with pages 1 & 2, 3 & 4, just with a higher resolution. This file is not formatted to print as a double sided booklet.

This has been a collaborative effort and we thank everyone, especially the Advance Care Planning committee who has helped to finish it up.

THANK YOU to  Mountain-Pacific Quality Health for printing 40,000 copies of the brochures in 2018 with the updated wording. 

Thank you to UHA Health Insurance for help with the prior printing and production costs (UHA PDF Concurrent Care for families).

The rest of the production was covered by a grant from the National POLST office


To date, over 50,000 copies of the booklet has been distributed across the state. Thanks to the generosity of Mountain Pacific, it was distributed to the public, community, and health care organizations.


Advanced Options:

  • To print a double sided booklet that is stapled in the middle click here (currently not available)