With the numbers of H1N1 (Swine Flu) cases flooding emergency rooms all over the country, you'll want to do everything you can to prevent contracting H1N1 and being subjected to fatal medical errors and infectious diseases if you have to go into the hospital. Martine Ehrenclou, author of the multiple award winning book, Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide To Get Your Loved One Out Alive, offers five life-saving tips to stay safe and free of disease if you have to be in the hospital.
PROTECT YOURSELF AND PLAN AHEAD
5 Tips
If you're sick enough to be a patient in the hospital, then you certainly cannot oversee and monitor your own medical care while you are there. And monitoring your medications, treatments and procedures to prevent medical errors and diseases, has become essential. An average of 195,000 people in the US die each year due to medical errors in hospitals. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11856.php
1. How to choose the best advocate for you. Your loved one who acts as your advocate will be your watchdog to oversee and monitor your medical care while you are a patient in the hospital. This person should have these qualities:
- proactive
- able to speak up and ask questions in a polite manner
- will get involved
- attentive to details
- organized
- willing to write things down
- willing to do some research
2. Patient Checklist. Ask your advocate to create a patient checklist with your full name, birth date, list of medications and dosages, allergies to medications, current illnesses, current diagnosis, dietary restrictions, primary physician's name and contact information.
This checklist will be placed in your chart and repeated by your advocate each time you are treated by a new medical professional or are transferred to another area of the hospital.
3. Notebook Notes. Ask your advocate to take notes in a notebook on your daily progress, conversations with physicians and primary nurses, medications, treatments and procedures. Notebook Notes will also include medical professionals' names and contact information.
3. Monitoring Your Medications. Medication errors injure 1.5 million people every year.>