We learn from people's--and our--mistakes. It's especially important to be up on the learning curve, and avoid mistakes, if we're in a hospital. A sobering chain of events calls attention to:
1. a slogan
2. advice, gained from Dr.Susan Love's (surgeon and prominent breast cancer prevention advocate) hospital experience, about the importance of family.
3. information from Jon La Pook, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia U. Medical Center and Chief Medical Correspondent for CBS News) about how to get optimal hospital care.
"EACH YEAR, half-a-million injuries occur in the United States because of medication errors," according to a 2009 U Magazine (UCLA health) article.
We live in an imperfect world. The older we get the more we're aware. With a better understanding of "best practices" are we better equipped to help hospitalized aging parents avoid accidental bad things because we know what to look for and thus, know what questions to ask? How can we know and ask pertinent questions if we're clueless about it in the first place?
The following excerpted information from U Magazine's 2009 article, "Do No Harm," illuminates measures the UCLA hospital system began implementing to reduce the potential for accidental "bad things" (my words for the overarching concept). Having this knowledge helps us know what to look for. Hopefully our hospitals have implemented some of these measures so we and our aging parents can take advantage--now 4 years later.
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