30-4402.

Legislative findings; act; purposes.

(1) The Legislature finds that:

(a) Issues implicated in advance planning for end-of-life care are distinct from issues implicated in advance planning for mental health care;

(b) Mental illness can be episodic and include periods of incapacity which obstruct an individual's ability to give informed consent and impede the individual's access to mental health care;

(c) An acute mental health episode can induce an individual to refuse treatment when the individual would otherwise consent to treatment if the individual's judgment were unimpaired;

(d) An individual may lose capacity without meeting the criteria for civil commitment in Nebraska; and

(e) An individual with mental illness has the same right to plan in advance for treatment as an individual planning for end-of-life care.

(2) The purposes of the Advance Mental Health Care Directives Act are to:

(a) Facilitate advance planning to help (i) prevent unnecessary involuntary commitment and incarceration, (ii) improve patient safety and health, (iii) improve mental health care, and (iv) enable an individual to exercise control over such individual's mental health treatment; and

(b) Protect patient safety, autonomy, and health by allowing an individual to create an advance mental health care directive to instruct and direct the individual's mental health care.