From registered nurse and public health advocate Sana Goldberg, RN, a timely, accessible, and comprehensive handbook to navigating common medical situations. From the routine to the unexpected, How to Be a Patient is your ultimate guide to better healthcare. Did you know that patients have statistically better outcomes when their surgeon is female? That you can mark-up an informed consent sheet before you sign it, or get second opinions on CTs and MRIs? That there’s a blue book for healthcare procedures, or an algorithm to decide between ER, Urgent Care, and waiting-until-Monday? In How to Be a Patient, nurse and public health advocate Sana Goldberg walks readers through the complicated and uncertain medical landscape, illuminating a path to better care. Warm and disarmingly honest, Goldberg’s advice is as expert as it is accessible. In the face of an epidemic of brusque, impersonal care she empowers readers with the information and tools to come to good decisions with their providers and sidestep the challenging realities of modern medicine. With sections like When All is Well, When It’s An Emergency, When It’s Your Person, and When You Have to Stand Up to the Industry, along with appendices to help track family history, avoid pointless medical tests, and choose when and where to undergo a procedure, How to Be a Patient is an invaluable and essential guide for a new generation of patients.

Dr. Creagan's prescription for prevention and survival teaches readers how to take control of their health care, their medical records and their decision making and shows patients how to wisely select and build partnerships with their doctors.

The facts are alarming: Medical errors kill more people each year than AIDS, breast cancer, or car accidents. A doctor’s relationship with pharmaceutical companies may influence his choice of drugs for you. The wrong key word on an insurance claim can deny you coverage. Through real life stories, including her own, and shrewd advice, CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen shows you how to become your own advocate and navigate the minefield of today’s health-care system. But there’s good news. Discover how to • find a doctor who “gets” you and listens to you • ask the right questions for the best treatment • make the most out of a short office visit • cut out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs • harness the power of the Internet for medical issues • fight back when claims are denied Combining the personal stories of patients across America with crucial advice on receiving the best possible health care, this guide will enable you to confront an often confusing and perilous system—and come out ahead.

This oft-quoted all-time favorite of the medical community will gladden--and strengthen--the hearts of patients, doctors, and anyone entering medical study, internship, or practice. With unassailable logic and rapier wit, the sage Dr. Oscar London muses on the challenges and joys of doctoring, and imparts timeless truths, reality checks, and poignant insights gleaned from 30 years of general practice--while never taking himself (or his profession) too seriously. The classic book on the art and humor of practicing medicine, celebrating its 20th anniversary in a new gift edition with updates throughout. Previous editions have sold more than 200,000 copies. The perfect gift for med students and grads as well as new and practicing physicians. Approximately 17,000 students graduate from med school each spring in North America.

In today's culture of instant gratification where credit cards let you pay with money you don't yet have, where articles have to be short or you'll never read them, and where you spend more time deleting emails than you actually have for reading those you need to, patience has become a dying art. We've been trained to want something five minutes ago, though yesterday would be even better. Impatience has become ingrained in us. Problem is, this isn't working to our benefit. From a health perspective, impatience contributes to stress, high blood pressure, and premature aging, among other deleterious impacts. From a psychological standpoint, impatience leads to unnecessary risks and poor decisions. From a social point of view, being impatient is a guaranteed way of losing friends and making enemies. It simply isn't an attractive trait. But believe it or not, you have far greater control over your own character than you might be aware of, or that you probably care to admit. Fortunately, your mood, attitude, and knee jerk reactions are not set in stone. The impatience that you've learned can actually be unlearned. Even better, your bad habits can be replaced by good ones. It takes a little patience, of course, but I'm going to help you along the way. Let's get started!

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.