Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-1 – Purpose
Terms Used In Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-1
- Advance mental health care directive: means a written document expressing preferences, instructions, or a power of attorney for mental health treatment. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
- Agent: means a competent adult designated in a power of attorney contained in an advance mental health care directive to make a mental health care decision for the individual granting the power and includes all designated alternate agents. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
- Capacity: means a principal's ability to understand the significant benefits, risks, and alternatives to proposed mental health care or treatment and to make and communicate a mental health care decision. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
- Mental health care: means any care, treatment, service, or procedure to maintain, diagnose, or otherwise affect a principal's mental condition, including:
(1) Selection and discharge of health care providers and institutions;
(2) Approval or disapproval of diagnostic tests, surgical procedures, and programs of medication; and
(3) Approval or disapproval of electroconvulsive treatment. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
- Mental health treatment: means any form of treatment used for the treatment of mental illness, including but not limited to electroconvulsive treatment, the use of psychotropic medication, and admission to and retention in a health care facility for the care or treatment of mental illness. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
- State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 327G-2
The State finds that all competent persons have the fundamental right to control decisions relating to their own mental health care, including the decision to accept or refuse all types of mental health treatment. The rights of individuals shall be respected when they have lost the capacity to participate actively in decisions regarding themselves or their mental health care and treatment. The laws of the State of Hawaii shall recognize the right of persons eighteen years of age or older and emancipated minors to make a written advance mental health care directive expressing their preferences and instructions regarding mental health care and treatment, including the consent to, or refusal of, that care and treatment, and to designate an agent or alternate agents to make mental health care decisions on behalf of the individual, when that individual later loses the capacity to make those decisions due to a mental illness.