Imagine that a medical emergency leaves you unconscious.  Further suppose that your emergency contacts are hiking in the wilderness with no cell reception, or went out of town and forgot to take the phone charger.  How will emergency personnel know your preferences for care, if you aren’t able to tell them and they can’t reach anyone?

“I’m still covered,” you might think, “because I have an advance directive that says what care I want and don’t want.”

But if neither you nor your emergency contact can talk with the doctors, how will the health care professionals even know that you’ve created such a document, much less what it says?

The Arizona Advance Directive Registry (http://www.azsos.gov/services/advance-directives) can help.  This site allows you to put key documents on file with the state.  After you have done so, the documents can be available to any hospital or health care provider in Arizona who needs them.

The state will put on file three types of documents:  your medical/health care power of attorney, which says who can make decisions about your care if you can’t; a mental health care power of attorney, which gives an individual the ability to make mental health care decisions for you if you aren’t able to make them yourself; and a living will, which may also be called an advance directive, which describes your choices for care if you have a fatal illness or serious injury, are in a persistent coma, have severe dementia, or are simply nearing the end of your life.

Once you have registered your documents with the state, they will send you a registration card to put in your wallet.  Emergency room personnel know to look for this card in the wallets of unresponsive patients, and with the information on it, they can download your documents.

Why not simply put your paperwork on file with Yavapai Regional Medical Center?  That’s a good idea, and I’ll discuss in another column how to go about doing do.  But many people who live in Prescott travel to Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson, and/or Sedona to show visitors the sights, attend cultural events, shop, go to the airport, get specialized medical care, and so forth.  Accidents or medical emergencies can easily arise when you are away from home.  Even if you almost always stay right here, think about how often you read in the paper that victims of auto accidents or other emergencies have been airlifted to hospitals in Phoenix or Flagstaff.  Wouldn’t you want the doctors there to be able to find out what care you want and don’t want?  Putting your living will and health care power of attorney on file with the state increases the odds that they will.