In this issue: Being There: The Hardest but Best Thing to Do; Falls and Bed Sores: Highly Preventable; The Plan Is the Thing; Check Out Our Previous Tips...

Just in time for the holidays, some bad news and some good news about hospital care:

Bad: The odds of suffering a preventable injury in the hospital are way higher than anyone thinks is reasonable. When a research team did a comprehensive review of medical records recently, they found as many as one in four hospital admissions marred by malpractice or some other type of injury, and most of them were preventable. This second study found one in seven Medicare patients injured by preventable mistakes.)

Good: Patients and families can do a lot to prevent injury from the most common errors. And I can teach you how.