Overview

Each year, one out of every four hospital patients in the United States will be harmed by the care they receive. Over 400,000 will die as a result. Dr. Gretchen LeFever Watson's definitive guide empowers patients to be patient safety advocates. It takes a village to combat preventable errors and omissions that cause millions of deaths and sickness in our nation’s hospitals and care facilities. Although most of these deaths are due to human and system errors—not faulty medical decisions or diagnoses—this annual death toll—as well as the millions of additional incidents of survivable patient harm—could be cut in half through consistent use of simple and nearly cost-free safety behaviors. In Your Patient Safety Survival Guide, Gretchen LeFever Watson delivers a patient-centered blueprint on how to transform the patient-safety movement so that millions of unnecessary illnesses and deaths in hospitals, outpatient facilities, and nursing homes can be avoided. She provides key safety habits that people must learn to recognize so they can be sure hospital personnel use them during every patient encounter. She also explains how addressing the most common safety problems will set the stage for tackling a wide range of issues, including healthcare’s role in the overuse of opiate painkillers and its related heroin epidemic. Watson’s call for a more sensible societal response to medical and human error in hospitals promotes a timely and full disclosure of all mistakes—an approach that has been proven to accelerate the emotional recovery of everyone affected by patient safety events while also reducing the financial burden on hospitals, providers, and patients. Readers will learn how to: • Change behavior to catch medical errors before they result in illness or death. • Prevent the spread of dangerous infections in hospitals and other care facilities. • Leverage the power of basic safety/hygiene habits. • Eliminate mistakes during surgery and other invasive procedures. • Avoid medication errors and the overuse of opiates • Raise awareness and inspire civic action in their communities.

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9781538127476

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More than 440,000 people die needlessly in American hospitals every year, making medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country. ... By giving patients the information and tools necessary to be their own advocates, Watson hopes to reduce errors and reestablish trusting relationships between patients and providers. This well-researched, eye-opening, and useful guide is an important addition to any health collection. * Booklist * Every patient wants safe health care, but it is hard to know how to get it. Your Patient Safety Survival Guide provides a useful action plan, including concrete steps and actual scripts that patients and families can use to become more effective advocates for their own safety. -- Albert W. Wu, MD, MPH, Professor and Director, Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health As a researcher on medication side effects, I have always been somewhat phobic of going into a hospital for care. Dr. Watson's book convinces me my fears are not misplaced! Thankfully, her book offers a very readable guide on how to reduce my risk of medical injury from surgical error, medication error, or infection. This book is must reading for anyone anticipating a hospital stay for themselves or a family member. -- David Antonuccio, PhD, Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, ABPP; Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine; Author of Butt Out: A Compassionate Guide to Helping Yourself Quit Smoking, With or Without a Partner Gretchen LeFever Watson has marshaled her agonizing personal experience and considerable professional expertise to write a compelling account of core issues in medical errors and patient safety. She has more or less abandoned hope that sufficient safety improvements will come from within health care itself, and believes that patients must at minimum partner with their providers to make care safer, medication by medication, surgery by surgery, step by step. She offers practical tips for patients to help avert the trifecta, or three most common types of errors: hospital acquired conditions, wrong-site surgeries and other off the mark procedures, and medication administration errors. Anyone who anticipates undergoing health care, or who cares for loved ones who do, should read this book. -- Susan Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer, NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation) Gretchen LeFever Watson has a background of organizing parents to take charge of health issues on a local basis. In this book she proposes to expand this idea to include patient safety. With the refreshing vigor of a citizen activist and the measured perspective of a healthcare professional, she lays forth a sensible yet ambitious plan for tackling some of the healthcare delivery system's most pressing issues. -- Helen Haskell, President, Mothers Against Medical Error

More than 440,000 people die needlessly in American hospitals every year, making medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country. ... By giving patients the information and tools necessary to be their own advocates, Watson hopes to reduce errors and reestablish trusting relationships between patients and providers. This well-researched, eye-opening, and useful guide is an important addition to any health collection. * Booklist * Every patient wants safe health care, but it is hard to know how to get it. Your Patient Safety Survival Guide provides a useful action plan, including concrete steps and actual scripts that patients and families can use to become more effective advocates for their own safety. -- Albert W. Wu, MD, MPH, Professor and Director, Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health As a researcher on medication side effects, I have always been somewhat phobic of going into a hospital for care. Dr. Watson’s book convinces me my fears are not misplaced! Thankfully, her book offers a very readable guide on how to reduce my risk of medical injury from surgical error, medication error, or infection. This book is must reading for anyone anticipating a hospital stay for themselves or a family member. -- David Antonuccio, PhD, Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, ABPP; Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine; Author of Butt Out: A Compassionate Guide to Helping Yourself Quit Smoking, With or Without a Partner Gretchen LeFever Watson has marshaled her agonizing personal experience and considerable professional expertise to write a compelling account of core issues in medical errors and patient safety. She has more or less abandoned hope that sufficient safety improvements will come from within health care itself, and believes that patients must at minimum partner with their providers to make care safer, medication by medication, surgery by surgery, step by step. She offers practical tips for patients to help avert the “trifecta,” or three most common types of errors: hospital acquired conditions, wrong-site surgeries and other “off the mark” procedures, and medication administration errors. Anyone who anticipates undergoing health care, or who cares for loved ones who do, should read this book. -- Susan Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer, NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation) Gretchen LeFever Watson has a background of organizing parents to take charge of health issues on a local basis. In this book she proposes to expand this idea to include patient safety. With the refreshing vigor of a citizen activist and the measured perspective of a healthcare professional, she lays forth a sensible yet ambitious plan for tackling some of the healthcare delivery system's most pressing issues. -- Helen Haskell, President, Mothers Against Medical Error

More than 440,000 people die needlessly in American hospitals every year, making medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country. ... By giving patients the information and tools necessary to be their own advocates, Watson hopes to reduce errors and reestablish trusting relationships between patients and providers. This well-researched, eye-opening, and useful guide is an important addition to any health collection. * Booklist * Every patient wants safe health care, but it is hard to know how to get it. Your Patient Safety Survival Guide provides a useful action plan, including concrete steps and actual scripts that patients and families can use to become more effective advocates for their own safety. -- Albert W. Wu, MD, MPH, Professor and Director, Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health As a researcher on medication side effects, I have always been somewhat phobic of going into a hospital for care. Dr. Watson's book convinces me my fears are not misplaced! Thankfully, her book offers a very readable guide on how to reduce my risk of medical injury from surgical error, medication error, or infection. This book is must reading for anyone anticipating a hospital stay for themselves or a family member. -- David Antonuccio, PhD, Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, ABPP; Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine; Author of Butt Out: A Compassionate Guide to Helping Yourself Quit Smoking, With or Without a Partner Gretchen LeFever Watson has marshaled her agonizing personal experience and considerable professional expertise to write a compelling account of core issues in medical errors and patient safety. She has more or less abandoned hope that sufficient safety improvements will come from within health care itself, and believes that patients must at minimum partner with their providers to make care safer, medication by medication, surgery by surgery, step by step. She offers practical tips for patients to help avert the trifecta, or three most common types of errors: hospital acquired conditions, wrong-site surgeries and other off the mark procedures, and medication administration errors. Anyone who anticipates undergoing health care, or who cares for loved ones who do, should read this book. -- Susan Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer, NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation) Gretchen LeFever Watson has a background of organizing parents to take charge of health issues on a local basis. In this book she proposes to expand this idea to include patient safety. With the refreshing vigor of a citizen activist and the measured perspective of a healthcare professional, she lays forth a sensible yet ambitious plan for tackling some of the healthcare delivery system's most pressing issues. -- Helen Haskell, President, Mothers Against Medical Error Dr. LeFever Watson is a champion for safety excellence in our health care system, and she makes a fervent call for clear-eyed, team-based quality approaches to medical error reduction. Undoubtedly readers of this engaging and informative book will be much stronger advocates for and participants in these reductions as patients, family members, and health care practitioners alike. * Family Medicine *

Author Information

Gretchen LeFever Watson, PhD, is a clinical psychologist whose research and intervention projects have received international scholarly and media attention, including appearances on TV and radio programs such as CNN Headline News, the PBS News Hour, and The Diane Rehm Show. Watson was among the first to document drug overtreatment for ADHD in the U.S. and to demonstrate that disruptive conduct can be successfully reduced through schoolwide behavioral interventions. Following positions as a hospital psychologist, medical school faculty member, and university professor, Watson served as Director of Patient Safety and Performance Excellence for a large healthcare system. Currently, she is president of Safety & Leadership Solutions, a consulting firm for organizational safety and change management.

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