Medical Errors are common ... tips to reduce it.

Patients, as never before, are being asked to be equal partners, if not the drivers, of their health care team.
Your vigilance is expected. Your life may depend on it.
There's a simultaneous, unprecedented push to reduce medical errors. Every year 44,000 to 98,000 die from Medical Errors in the USA hospitals according to the NIH.
Experts suggest that adherence to even simple steps might make a big difference:
· Assemble your health team the way you would pick someone to watch your children or your parents, advises John Senders, director of the new Center for Patient Safety at the University of Miami. "People need to have the attitude of, 'I'm in charge; I own this body and you're the person I hired to take of it.' "

· Make your doctor write legibly. If you can't read your doctor's prescription and are worried someone else might not be able to, tell them to rewrite the order more clearly.

· Ask whether you need a catheter after surgery, particularly if you have one for more than a day, because they raise your risk of getting an infection. Also, request clipping, not shaving, of body hair before surgery. Overly rigorous presurgery shaving raises the risk of infection, experts have found.

· Avoid hospitals in July. That's when new interns typically begin training stints at hospitals, according to the book, "Dr. David Sherer's Hospital Survival Guide, 100 Ways to Make Your Hospital Stay Safe and Comfortable" (Claren; $14.95).

· Get the first morning appointment when a doctor "is fresher and might be more on schedule," suggests Dr. Edward Creagan, a Mayo Clinic cancer specialist and author of "How Not to Be My Patient, A Physician's Secrets for Staying Healthy and Surviving Any Diagnosis," written with science writer Sandra Wendel.

If you have a personal experience of medical errors please send it to me. Please avoid names of patients or hospital. I just want to know the possible medical error. I will be giving a talk at Las Vegas on Medical Errors on July 2 to a group of Physicians. I need more examples.

Thanks,

Leo Leonidas , MD, FAAP
Bangor

www.brilliantbaby.com