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Whether your special Valentine is your spouse, signficant
other, friend, family member or other loved one, they deserve the very
best protection from medical errors. The following
tips/advice and websites can help.
1. Choose
your hospital wisely
Research shows that patients
tend to have better results when they are treated in hospitals that have a
great deal of experience with their condition. Send your Valentine to the following website to
learn which are the top local hospitals for their particular
condition. Click here and go to America's Best Hospitals.
2. Tell
the truth and nothing but the truth . . .so help you Valentine
Your doctors must know about
all the prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines AND dietary supplements
you are taking including vitamins and herbs. Your Valentine might hesitate revealing ALL
this personal information, but remind them about your broken heart if a
prescription error causes them signficant injury. Medication
errors are also a serious source of medical malpractice...read this
issue's "Did You Know?" to learn more about
preventing this type of medical error.
3. Make
sure your Valentine's heart is in the right place
Doing surgery on the wrong
site (for example, operating on the left knee instead of the right) is
rare. But even once is too often. Talk to your surgeon about
marking the site of the surgery which is something The American
Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons urges its members to do.
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Did You Know?
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A 2006 study by
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies found that
medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at
least 1.5 million people every year. According to the study, 400,000
preventable drug-related injuries occur each year in hospitals, 800,000
in long-term care settings, and roughly 530,000 among Medicare recipients
in outpatient clinics. The report stated that these are likely to be
conservative estimates.
Many cases involve patients
who were given the wrong medication, the wrong dosage, or a drug known to
interact adversely with another drug they are taking. According to the
American Medical Association, most avoidable serious mistakes are due to
prescribing errors and inadequate monitoring of patients by doctors.
KNOW YOUR DRUGS AND PREVENT
ERRORS
by going here and choosing: Prescription Drug Information
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