Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 222
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-5381-0209-1 • Hardback • August 2017 • $44.00 • (£35.00)
978-1-5381-2747-6 • Paperback • February 2019 • $27.00 • (£19.99)
978-1-5381-0210-7 • eBook • August 2017 • $25.50 • (£19.99)
Gretchen LeFever Watson, PhD, is a clinical psychologist whose research and intervention projects have received international scholarly and media attention, including appearances on TV and radio programs such as CNN Headline News, the PBS News Hour, and The Diane Rehm Show. Watson was among the first to document drug overtreatment for ADHD in the U.S. and to demonstrate that disruptive conduct can be successfully reduced through schoolwide behavioral interventions. Following positions as a hospital psychologist, medical school faculty member, and university professor, Watson served as Director of Patient Safety and Performance Excellence for a large healthcare system. Currently, she is president of Safety & Leadership Solutions, a consulting firm for organizational safety and change management.
More than 440,000 people die needlessly in American hospitals every year, making medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country. ... By giving patients the information and tools necessary to be their own advocates, Watson hopes to reduce errors and reestablish trusting relationships between patients and providers. This well-researched, eye-opening, and useful guide is an important addition to any health collection.
— Booklist
Every patient wants safe health care, but it is hard to know how to get it. Your Patient Safety Survival Guide provides a useful action plan, including concrete steps and actual scripts that patients and families can use to become more effective advocates for their own safety.
— Albert W. Wu, MD, MPH, Professor and Director, Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
As a researcher on medication side effects, I have always been somewhat phobic of going into a hospital for care. Dr. Watson’s book convinces me my fears are not misplaced! Thankfully, her book offers a very readable guide on how to reduce my risk of medical injury from surgical error, medication error, or infection. This book is must reading for anyone anticipating a hospital stay for themselves or a family member.
— David Antonuccio Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine
Gretchen LeFever Watson has marshaled her agonizing personal experience and considerable professional expertise to write a compelling account of core issues in medical errors and patient safety. She has more or less abandoned hope that sufficient safety improvements will come from within health care itself, and believes that patients must at minimum partner with their providers to make care safer, medication by medication, surgery by surgery, step by step. She offers practical tips for patients to help avert the “trifecta,” or three most common types of errors: hospital acquired conditions, wrong-site surgeries and other “off the mark” procedures, and medication administration errors. Anyone who anticipates undergoing health care, or who cares for loved ones who do, should read this book.
— Susan Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer, NEHI (Network for Excellence in Health Innovation)
Gretchen LeFever Watson has a background of organizing parents to take charge of health issues on a local basis. In this book she proposes to expand this idea to include patient safety. With the refreshing vigor of a citizen activist and the measured perspective of a healthcare professional, she lays forth a sensible yet ambitious plan for tackling some of the healthcare delivery system's most pressing issues.
— Helen Haskell, President, Mothers Against Medical Error
Dr. LeFever Watson is a champion for safety excellence in our health care system, and she makes a fervent call for clear-eyed, team-based quality approaches to medical error reduction. Undoubtedly readers of this engaging and informative book will be much stronger advocates for and participants in these reductions as patients, family members, and health care practitioners alike.
— Family Medicine