Get The Best Medical Care

August 12, 2009

Interview with Patrick Malone, author of The Life You Save
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Mike Carruthers:
According to the medical industry's own statistics…

Patrick Malone:
Forty thousand injuries occur everyday that are preventable - anything from preventable infections to people getting the wrong surgery to doctors making a misdiagnosis.
 

Patrick Malone, author of the book The Life You Save …

We have a country that is greatly advanced in the technology of healthcare but in terms of the reliable day-to-day delivery of care we haven't paid enough attention to that.

Other industries where mistakes would be catastrophic have figured this out.

The aviation industry, the nuclear sub industry - they've all worked out ways of having two sets of eyes on any critical task. And getting patients involved in their own healthcare helps bring a second set of eyes to critical issues in healthcare.

And step one of getting involved in your own healthcare, says Patrick, is getting your own medical records and reading them. It's not unheard of for people to find big mistakes in their own medical records. Things like…

There's a recommendation in there for some kind of treatment that somehow hasn't been conveyed to the patient. Or there might be an abnormal test result that wasn't conveyed or there just could be something in your records that's completely wrong and you need to know about it so you can take steps to get things right.

Tomorrow, how to talk to your doctor to get the best care...

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.