Increased Use of Advance Directives

In a recent article, The New York Times cited a study by The Commonwealth Fund focused on health care for Americans over age 65. While the report gave low grades to many aspects of seniors' health care in America, it noted that seniors in America "do better than almost anyone else in the survey on advance care planning. Americans over 65 are the most likely to say they have discussed having a health care proxy (78 percent) and to have actually named one (67 percent), and rank second in having a written plan describing their end-of-life wishes (55 percent)."

This is very encouraging. As I discuss in my book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, the law of most states provides several mechanisms by which you can express your wishes for end of life care before you are too ill to make such decisions.  These mechanisms are referred to as "advance directives."

It is beyond the scope of a blog to discuss advance directives in detail, but a full explanation and analysis can be found in Patient Confidential and other books on healthcare. Your doctor is a good sources for forms for advance directives.

Patient Confidential Ebook Released

Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System is now available in ebook form, as well as in print. The ebook format is ideal for those who prefer to read on a device and is very handy to take along to the doctor visit or test or to have on the bedside table during that unfortunate hospital stay.

Patient Confidential Is Released

I am excited to announce the release of my new book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System. The book draws on my lifetime of healthcare encounters, including over thirty five surgeries and invasive procedures, weeks and weeks in hospitals and all the countless tests, office visits and physical therapy that I have attended. I really hope the book helps people of all ages as they obtain their healthcare, be it minor or major. Click here for more details and to see four endorsements of which I am really proud.

  

Proactive Patient

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlighted again the positive effect a proactive patient can have on his or her own health. The article cited a study published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry which found that aging is both subjective and biological, and the two aspects are related. People who were more physically active more often had a younger self-image. So, that fountain of youth might exist right in your running shoes.

In Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, I stress the importance of patient involvement in health care. I stress asking questions, getting facts and learning consequences. This article demonstrates one more way that a person can take steps to improve his or her self-image and health.

Smart Patients Can Make Anesthesia Safer 

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on steps doctors and patients can take to make anesthesia safer.  Most people understand that anesthesia has risks.  They are familiar with the Michael Jackson case or with Joan Rivers's recent death from oxygen deprivation during a surgical procedure.

As I advise over and over in my upcoming book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, knowledge of medical procedures is critical.  And, always, always ask questions. The Journal article discusses safety measures doctors can take, but of more interest to most readers is the information on what measures patients can take to maximize safety.  The article contains an excellent sidebar, entitled "Getting Ready to Go Under" with a list of six steps patients should take before receiving anesthesia.  They include such things as asking who will monitor your anesthesia, the surgeon, a nurse or an anesthesiologist, and giving the anesthesia provider a full list of all prescription and non-prescription drugs and a list of all supplements and herbal remedies you take.

Man Bites Dog

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently had a heart procedure performed.  As my doctor was going over the procedure he was about to perform, I mentioned that I heard he was going to have knee replacement surgery.  So, then the man bit the dog.  As the “Professional Patient,” I gave the doctor some of the advice I wrote in my upcoming book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, which is practical advice given from the patient’s perspective.  Of course, there is too much in the book for me to cover in a conversation and, as a physician, my doc would have more knowledge than the average patient.  I concentrated on getting home from the hospital, which I discuss in the section entitled “Going Home From the Hospital” in Patient Confidential.  For example, I told him to prepare for coming home before he goes to the hospital, not when he gets home.  I told him to remove any throw rugs he could slip or trip on, and to get his favorite chair exactly where he will want it when he gets home.  To my delight, when he saw me in the hospital the next day, he said, “I followed your advice.  I went home last night and took care of rugs and chairs.”  I was pleased that I had helped.

 

Practicing What I Preach

Earlier this week, I had a heart procedure performed by an excellent cardiac electrophysiologist at one of the leading hospitals in the Chicago area.  So, I further enhanced my credentials as the “Professional Patient!”  I am happy to report that I followed all of my own advice, which is set out in my upcoming book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System.

My doctor performs various types of electrophysiology procedures, two of which are somewhat similar.  I wanted to be “double sure” my doc was about to perform the one we had agreed on.  When I scheduled in advance, I said to the scheduler, “Now, I’m coming for Procedure A, not Procedure B, right?”  I asked the same question of the nurse who was prepping me for the procedure.  The doc, who was one step ahead of me, arrived and said, “we are doing Procedure A.”  I said, “Right, and not Procedure B.”  He confirmed and gave me the consent form which I saw stated he would be doing Procedure A, so I signed it.  When I got into the procedure room, I listened carefully as the doc called the “time out,” which is explained in the section entitled “Patient Safety Procedures” in Patient Confidential. I heard him say for the recorded time out that he was going to do Procedure A on Mr. Richard Lang.”  All was well.