Image via Wikipedia

I attend physician appointments with my patients every day.  I am always surprised at the lack of questions posed from the patient and/or family members.  When did we decide that the doctor knows best and we should simply take his or her advice without questioning the why, how come, and what is my alternative?  A story in Better Health suggested that there are typically five reasons patients fail to ask questions.
1.  Fear-In my practice I do feel that there is a fear of many of my patients that …

A study out by HealthGrades reports 195,000 in-hospital deaths secondary to medical error. 37 millions records were reviewed for 2000, 2001, and 2002 and deaths averaged 195,000 for this time period. They also found this accounted for $6 Billion in extra costs per year. This study covered all 50 states and four major areas of concern were noted.

Failure to rescue
Bed sores or pressure ulcers
Post operative sepsis
Postoperative pulmonary embolism

The study also highlights these scary findings.

Of the total 323,993 deaths among Medicare patients 81 …

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I read an interesting post this week by Trisha Torrey. The post mentions a newspaper article which suggests one needed to be friendly in order to be a good patient advocate. If you read her post you will see that we disagree. Friendliness has nothing to do with it. Trisha and her friend, Bart Windrum both recommend being business-like. I have to agree.
As a nurse case manager, I have to advocate for patients every day. I have a staff …