When the Institute of Medicine released its landmark report on medical errors in 1999, they shot a statistic that was heard around the world: “As many as 98,000 people die each year due to medical errors.”

While the report has yet to create a significant impact on the improvements needed in healthcare, it did galvanize a movement among individuals to advance the cause of patient safety. It also spurred some changes in the actual practice of healthcare. National organizations, such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, mandated that hospitals must implement new safety practices including improving communication, verifying surgical sites and securing patient identification. Furthermore, teaching hospitals are required to limit the number of intern and resident training hours to reduce medical errors caused by fatigue.

Becoming more proactive when you meet with your doctor is a message promoted on virtually all of the reputable health information Web sites. It can mean the difference between life and death in more instances than you would imagine. There are many kinds of ways you can be personally engaged on behalf of yourself or a loved one when it comes to healthcare encounters. The days are long gone, if they ever truly existed in the first place, when you could simply rely on getting all your information from your doctor.

Our Medical Director and Founder, Dr. Cari Oliver, writes extensively on how you can be engaged in your healthcare experience in her upcoming book, Balancing the Doctor – Patient Relationship: Getting What You Need. One way to begin to be proactive is to spend some time before your next visit with your doctor thinking about what the primary goal is you have for the visit. Write it down, along with any questions related to that goal. Your doctor is not going to be able to answer forty questions so keep the list manageable. You should also think about other places you might seek (like well-respected Web sites) answers to your longer list of questions.

I’ll let you know, here on our Cautious Patient Foundation Web site, when Cari’s new book is published. Among other options, we plan to make the book available as a free download on our Web site. However, I want to suggest another valuable site for your exploration. It’s not as well known as, say, the CDC Web site but it is full of interesting and useful healthcare information.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ, is a U.S. government agency trying to get the word out about, among other issues, the importance of asking questions in medical settings. They have a public service announcement prepared for television that takes a light-hearted approach to encouraging us to ask questions of the medical professionals we encounter in our healthcare journey. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of their reason for airing this spot is to also encourage the healthcare profession to be more open to inquiry. It’s only sixty seconds, so go take a look at it right now:

There are other short videos on their YouTube site you might also want to check out. This is a good site and I would encourage you to bookmark it on your favorites list.

There’s still no one you can expect to care more about your health than you. So, stay alert and stay safe out there!

Last month, Maureen Dowd wrote a thought provoking and very personal op-ed piece for The New York Times titled, “Giving Doctors Orders.” Her article sheds light on a very important issue in today’s healthcare industry – and a dilemma all of us will encounter at some point either in our lives or those of our loved ones. If you have not read her article, I highly encourage you do so.

I found Maureen’s story incredibly moving. She shared her experience of her brother, Michael, entering a hospital with pneumonia and ended up contracting four other infections in the intensive care unit, where he later died. Maureen noted in her article that she “saw infractions of the rules in the I.C.U. where Michael died, but I never called out anyone.

In this video blog, I’ll share with you some information available on the Cautious Patient Foundation website that may provide you with new ways of thinking and creative approaches to help you to get what you need from your doctor and become more effective in managing your own healthcare.

I hope you find this information helpful. If you have other tips or best practices to share, let us know in the comments.

We’ve recently announced our new grants program at the Cautious Patient Foundation and are very excited about the impact this program may have in improving the quality of healthcare today.

At Cautious Patient Foundation, we are interested in “prevention,” but not in terms of “how do I prevent myself from getting sick?” Many men and women who are embarking on either their own healthcare journey, or that of a loved one, often don’t have the tools and resources to navigate the healthcare system in a manner that allows them to take charge of their health and program for wellness. We hope to prevent this by empowering individuals to actively participate in their healthcare journey and arming them with the tools and resources necessary to achieve the best results possible.

The statistics are there:

• One out of every three people suffers a mistake during a hospital stay. (Health Affairs)
• Nearly 100,000 patients die in U.S. hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors. (Institute of Medicine Report)
• Another 99,000 die due to hospital-acquired infections. (Center for Disease Control)
• Approximately 15 million medical mistakes occur in U.S. hospitals each year. (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) ...

I now believe I can safely say that the term “patient-centered care” is being discussed by healthcare professionals pretty much all over the world. Earlier this month I attended a conference in Amsterdam along with approximately 2,800 other people working in healthcare from 83 countries. Patient-centered care seemed to be on everyone’s lips. I heard comments being made about it, and questions asked concerning it, from quite a geographically diverse group of people working in, among other places, Cambodia, Uganda, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

It doesn’t appear to me that most people, meaning patients, here in the U.S. know much about this kind of care. The term is more familiar to those working in healthcare in this country. More familiar is the key phrase in that last sentence.  I remember being told by someone working closely on the healthcare legislation last year in Washington, D.C., that they heard the term widely used in a multitude of meetings but often wondered if the people using the term had any idea of what they were talking about. Personally, I think the most that can be said about the state of – or even the direction in – healthcare services is more likely “doctor-centered but patient-conscious care.” I can’t say that I have yet heard anyone offer that mouthful of a phrase but it seems to be the best descriptor I can come up with to describe where we are in healthcare epistemology (i) ...

About a week ago I attended a four-day healthcare conference in Orlando, along with around 30,965 other people. The first day at the HIMSS conference, we were told there were 31,000 but by day two they had downgraded the number by about 35. Well, there are a lot of golf courses in Orlando where one could get lost. This was the 50th year this healthcare association had held their event and they provided all of us with a 172-page long conference resource guide. I estimate there were 1,000 exhibitors, based upon the number of times I got lost in different sections of the exhibit hall(s). I lost track of what century I was in at times as I heard people talking about the importance of “patient portals” (this was not supposed to be a Star Trek convention) and I saw 3-D images of internal organs that could be seen without 3-D viewing glasses (I get queasy watching CSI so I definitely don’t need organs jumping off the screen). While this was by far the largest healthcare-related conference I have ever attended, the sheer number of major conferences on some aspect of healthcare literally exceeds the number of weeks in the year. But those numbers wasn’t the one floating around in my head as I put mile after walking-mile on my imaginary pedometer during those four days....

Every year many men, women and children, equal to the crowd at the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, die in American hospitals due to medical errors. They die because a mistake is made. There is often more than one mistake. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of additional people suffer unnecessary injuries, serious illnesses and untimely deaths in our healthcare system. This tragic loss will continue unless every one of us becomes more vigilant and better informed. At the very least, we must rein in the seeming deification of doctors — and start to help them help us.

With this first blog as executive director of the Cautious Patient Foundation, I am setting the focus for this series of regular comments, news and reflections while addressing the large and multifaceted topic of Patient Safety. In my role at the foundation, I am extremely blessed to travel and listen to some of the most passionate and engaged women and men who work for patient safety...