Utah modernizes its Advance Health Care Directive Act

Here are the highlights of Utah’s updating of its Advance Health Care Directive Act as stated in the enrolled version of S.B. 161:

• defines terms;
• describes the standard to be used by a surrogate in making a health care decision on behalf of a person who no longer has capacity to make the person’s own health care decisions;
• replaces the physician order for life sustaining treatment form with a life with dignity order and establishes procedures and requirements relating to the order;
• describes who may witness the making or revocation of an advance health care directive;
• modifies provisions related to default surrogates, including:
  • the order of priority among potential surrogates; and
  • witnessing the disqualification of a default surrogate;
• modifies the optional form for an advance health care directive;
• describes the reciprocal applicability of an advance health care directive made before the effective date of this bill; and
• makes technical changes.

See 2008 Utah Laws Ch. 107.