Recent Review of Patient Confidential

I was very happy to receive this favorable review of my book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, from Matt Cavallo, the prestigious author of 7 Steps to Living Well with a Chronic Illness and The Dog Story: A Journey into a New Life with Multiple Sclerosis. 

"I found the information in “Patient Confidential” to be a succinct, easy to read, invaluable resource of how to navigate the healthcare system. I would highly recommend this book to anyone seeking education on the healthcare system."

Take Charge of Your Medical Records

"It's your health. So it's time you took control of all the information about it." That is the opening sentence in an excellent recent article in The Wall Street Journal, titled "How To Take Charge of Your Medical Records." It goes on to say, "Studies show that 400,000 Americans die every year because of medical errors, including 80,000 because doctors don’t have in hand the information they need."

The article is an excellent guide to obtaining, managing, correcting and protecting your medical records. It lists five important steps: (1) demand your data, (2) organize it, (3) share it, (4) generate it yourself (measuring your own blood pressure, exercise data, etc.), and (5) protect it. It contains detailed advice on managing records, including computer and smart phone programs and applications, as well as discussing the privacy risks of using those.

In almost every facet of life, knowledge is power, and it is no different in healthcare, except that some of the healthcare knowledge a person acquires might save his or her life.

Communication Critical to Patient Care

 

 

 

A recent article in the New York Times, stressed the dangers of lack of communication. This article focused on lack of communication among a patient's physicians, but the lesson I stress in Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, about patient involvement, understanding and empowerment is a part of the solution. For example, if patients or their caregivers are constantly asking questions of every physician, nurse or technician who comes into their hospital room to do something, and not letting anything be done without an explanation, the effect of lack of communication among the doctors would be blunted.

 

Of course, asking questions and understanding what is being done and why before it is done, is important in all other medical encounters too, like office visits, tests, medications, physical therapy sessions and so on.

Richard's Interview On Cancer SOS Radio Program





I recently appeared on Joni Aldrich's iHeart radio show, Cancer SOS.  Joni is very experienced in dealing with medical issues, and her show is very helpful to patients, as I hope my book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, is. I think Joni and I, and co-host Chris Jerry, had a very lively discussion, which we hope is beneficial to patients and their caregivers. Much of the credit goes to Joni and Chris, who are deeply committed to helping patients and are skilled interviewers.  The link to the show is below.  One must "join" iHeart to listen, but it is easy and free.

 

http://www.iheart.com/show/Joni-Aldrich-SOS-Supporter-of/?episode_id=27259555

Seven Minute Podcast Sheds Light On Issues in

Patient Confidential, Including Getting Second Opinions

 

I was recently interviewed for a podcast on Jennings Wire regarding various tips I set out in Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System.  Here is the link to the podcast.  I hope you find it helpful.



The Power of Second Opinions

On its Health Shots Health News Page, NPR recently posted an article about second opinions, citing the story about the actress Rita Wilson's cancer diagnosis and subsequent double mastectomy. As I wrote in Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, second opinions are important and beneficial. The article points out that second opinions are not always right, just as first opinions are not always right, but states: "That doesn't mean second opinions are a bad idea. By some estimates, diagnostic errors occur in 10 to 15 percent of cases."

 

Knowledge is power, including in the patient protection arena, and more knowledge is more power. So, get that second opinion.

Patient Knowledge Recognized by Hospitals

A recent Wall Street Journal article, reported that, "Patients are getting help from experts with no medical degrees but plenty of know-how: fellow patients who have faced the same health challenges."  The inset title of the article is "The Informed Patient." The core advice in my book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, is that the patient must inform himself. The article reports on the formalization of an informal process of informing patients which has gone on for years, namely patients mentoring others who have the same medical condition. Before several of my surgeries, I asked friends who I knew had undergone the same surgery to tell me about the experience and give me practical tips. I have done the same for many others.

 

But, finding a friend with the same condition is happenstance. Now healthcare providers are formalizing that process. Dr. Paul King, Director of the Center for Joint Replacement at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland, is quoted as saying, "We have all these nurses and surgeons who haven't actually had a knee or hip replacement and don't know firsthand what it is like." So, Anne Arundel began a program and trains mentors. Mentors, of course, are not giving medical advice or developing physical therapy plans beyond what the therapist did. Their job is to tell patients what it's "really like" from the patient perspective, and to help them follow the instructions of the professional healthcare providers. With such a program, the patient simply signs up to have a mentor and the hospital matches her with one.

 

In a post to this blog on October 27, 2014, titled "Man Bites Dog," I wrote how I advised my cardiologist what it was like to be a knee replacement patient, and how much he said that helped him. He knew what he knew and I knew what I knew.

I hope healthcare institutions all over the country rapidly establish and support patient mentor programs.