§ 20-17-201 — Definitions

As used in this subchapter: (1) "Attending physician" means the physician who has primary responsibility for the treatment and care of the patient; (2) (A) "Declaration" means a writing executed in accordance with the requirements of § 20-17-202(a) . (B) "Declaration" is an advance directive under § 20-6-102 ; (3) "Healthcare provider" means a person who is licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by the law of this state to administer health care in the ordinary course of business or practice of a profession; (4) "Healthcare proxy" is a person eighteen (18) years old or older appointed by the patient as attorney-in-fact to make healthcare decisions including the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment if a qualified patient, in the opinion of the attending physician, is permanently unconscious, incompetent, or otherwise mentally or physically incapable of communication; (5) "Life-sustaining treatment" means any medical procedure or intervention that, when administered to a qualified patient, will serve only to prolong the process of dying or to maintain the patient in a condition of permanent unconsciousness; (6) "Permanently unconscious" means a lasting condition, indefinitely without change in which thought, feeling, sensations, and awareness of self and environment are absent; (7) "Person" means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, joint venture, government, governmental subdivision or agency, or any other legal or commercial entity; (8) "Physician" means an individual licensed to practice medicine in this state; (9) "Qualified patient" means a patient eighteen (18) or more years of age who has executed a declaration or appointed a healthcare proxy and who has been determined to be in a terminal condition or in a permanently unconscious state by the attending physician and another qualified physician who has examined the patient; (10) "State" means a state, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; and (11) "Terminal condition" means an incurable and irreversible condition that, without the administration of life-sustaining treatment, will, in the opinion of the attending physician, result in death within a relatively short time.

Legislative History

Amended by Act 2017, No. 974,§ 4, eff. 8/1/2017. Acts 1987, No. 713, § 1; 1999, No. 1536, § 1.