Critical Conditions ─ The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive

Hospital patient care is becoming hazardous to the patient's health. There must be someone---a family member---to act as sentinel to prevent medical errors. The large number of preventable deaths in hospitals nationwide has been highly publicized. Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide To Get Your Loved One Out Alive is a new book about how to be a proactive advocate for your hospitalized loved one in order to prevent medical error, medication mistakes, fatal falls and the spread of hospital-acquired infectious diseases. Critical Conditions is a step-by-step guide based on over 150 interviews with registered nurses, physicians and hospital staff, and the author's own experiences with hospitalized family members and hundreds of hours of research. It is a book for family members written by a family member who has been there. A reported quarter of a million deaths in hospitals nationwide were found to be preventable (The Fifth Annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, 2008). If someone has a parent, spouse, sibling or child in the hospital, they must get actively involved in the patient's care to monitor and oversee the medical care that is provided. Hospitalized patients are recovering either from an injury, illness, or disease and cannot do this for themselves. Someone, a family member or good friend, must act as a sentinel, or a watchdog, to avert preventable, fatal errors. You will learn how to: Prevent deadly medical errors, medication mistakes, infectious diseases; Reach doctors when you need them (every time); Navigate and manage the hospital system with confidence; Interact with doctors and nurses effectively; Maximize care for the patient; Comfort the patient; Learn what to do if you live out of town and create a Family Advocate Team.

After multiple hospitalizations of her own family members, Martine Ehrenclou, interviewed over 150 doctors, nurses, hospital social workers, psychologists, other medical staff, and families, to find clear understanding, advice, and direction. She offers the results of her efforts in this simple and easy-to-read book. Now you can be sure your loved one will receive the best possible care in any hospital. Martine is a writer and public relations / marketing executive, with clients that include authors, psychologists, and entrepreneurs. As past owner of Love Letters Ink, she was interviewed as the "Contemporary Cyrano" by National TV Talk and news shows such as Phil Donahue, Jenny Jones, ABC World News Tonight, and CNN. She has also been interviewd by national magazines such as Time Magazine, Inc, The Economist, and Glamour and newspapers including Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. She has had several of her stories published in bestselling books and has written for newspapers and magazines. Martine has a Masters Degree in Psychology from Pepperdine University, Los Angeles. She currently runs writing groups for at-risk youth and adults.