Go ahead, ask. Patient safety comes first

I’m curious how you selected Hand Washing, Patient Identification, Patient Falls & Fall Prevention, and Medications in your campaign, and if that was based on a patient survey, a hospital employee survey, or an assessment of errors.

Lisa – We’re looking into the answer for your question. Because this is a Greater Cincinnati Health Council – backed campaign, we want to make sure we provide you information directly from them.

Lisa – The following is the response we received from the Greater Cincinnati Health Council in response to your question: “Those 4 areas were noted by the committee as having the biggest impact on patient safety in hospitals. They recognize there were other important areas we could have included, such as having a patient advocate, and plan to add on throughout the year.” Additional information is available at gchc.org if you’re interested.

This becomes especially challenging once your “child” turns 18 and is supposed to be “self-advocating”. Our son has memory problems that are often pretty severe. He cannot always remember to ask what he needs. He does ask for his parents to be involved when he is inpatient (different hospital) and has been turned down at times for family sessions. This is especially frustrating. Despite his obtaining a healthcare proxy he has not always been allowed to get parental involvement when he needed it. He does not always understand, but does not know what to ask or to tell us what doctors have said when we are not there. This frustrates all of us. We get left out simply because of his age. We have worked for years to teach him for the day he would be 18, but his increasing memory issues because of his medical problems cause concern. We are told he must “Self-advocate”. This was true after a suicide attempt when he was greatly impaired. This was also true in two hospitalizations when we were promised we WOULD be allowed involvement. He has been let down.

Advocating for your own care is difficult when you are ill. Any age this is true. When there are cognitive and other issues that cause more concern, it multiplies the issues for concern. Family members do not always do the best things. WHen the patient ASKS for help from family, Clinicians SHOULD honor the requests.

Ginny miller