Hospital Survival Guide | Hospital Safety - Consumer Reports

Hospital Survival Guide | Hospital Safety - Consumer Reports:
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For most of us, a trip to the hospital is like being thrust into a foreign country without a guidebook. We don't speak the language, and find ourselves dependent on strangers for our basic needs. With much of our energy directed toward healing, we might simply cede control to medical professionals and hope for the best.

But planning for a hospital stay can lead to better care and a faster recovery. In fact, your involvement is critical. That's because you—or a designated friend or family member—are often the best defense against drug mix-ups, hospital-acquired infections, surgical mistakes, and other errors or adverse events. Those errors affect one in four hospitalized patients, according to recent estimates. One study found that the most serious ones contribute to the deaths of some 180,000 patients 65 and older a year.

"The best advice I can give is to be your own advocate," says Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of adult critical-care medicine and a patient-safety researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "Question, question, question until things are explained in a way you understand. A health-care system that doesn't address your concerns is a risky one."

Here's our advice for a safe hospital stay, from check-in to discharge. We assume you'll be staying overnight, but much of our advice applies to outpatient visits, too.