The Smart Patient's Healthcare Handbook is an organizational tool to gather all your unique health information in one place. Easy to use, easy to fill in. Recognize where your health is now and understand what health challenges you might have in the future. Create more proactive conversations with your healthcare providers. Make every second with your doctor dedicated to your current and future good health by being prepared.

Everyone needs to become a smart patient. In fact, in the worst cases, your life may even depend on it. Number one bestselling authors and doctors Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz have written this indispensable handbook to help everyone to get the best health care possible -- by making everyone into their own medical detective. Witty, playful, at times offbeat, but always authoritative, You: The Smart Patient shows you how to become your own medical sleuth, tracing your medical family tree and wending your way through the pitfalls of any health care situation. Written in conjunction with the health care community's leading oversight group, The Joint Commission, the book shows readers in clear, easy steps how to take control of their own health care and deal with all matters that may come up when facing a medical case: from choosing the right doctor, hospital, and insurance company to navigating prescription drugs, specialists, treatment options, alternative medicine, pain management, or any problem that might arise. Accessible, humorous, and filled with information that you need, You: The Smart Patient is a book for every patient and all those dealing with a loved one's medical issues.

It isn't easy to be a patient. Aside from the worry about having an illness or injury, there are doctors to visit, tests to be performed, drugs to be taken, and the recovery process. All of these steps can take a lot of time and money, and the best course of action is not always clear. Wouldn't it be great to know exactly how to deal with all the biggest hurdles ahead of time? Now you can be prepared. The Smart Patient's Handbook was specifically designed to help you navigate the health care landscape like a seasoned pro. Get the information the doctors know so you can make informed health care decisions, learn about the latest research on immune system boosting foods and supplements, get simple strategies to decrease the cost of prescription drugs, learn how to find a doctor you can work with, and more. These tips are also important for caretakers or even for people who must take care of their pets. Whether dealing with a potentially fatal disease or the common cold, everyone wants the best medical care they can get. From doctors' advice and the experience of thousands of patients who had been given the wrong tests, visited the wrong doctor, received the wrong prescription, or just needed to recover, their combined knowledge will be in your hands when you read The Smart Patient's Handbook.

Getting effective, error free affordable healthcare is challenging. Managing Your Doctor is here to help. An information overload no doctor can keep up with; endless manipulations by drug and medical device companies; a take over by profit seeking corporations; laws that disadvantage the patient; an epidemic of medical and billing errors combine with the ever increasing complexity of medicine all contribute to the problem. The antidote is the right information - which this book provides, divided into sections on getting the right doctor; diagnosis; information; treatment; price; future; even the right death (as terminal care is notoriously badly handled) and advice on a home medical kit.

The inspiring story of how a leading innovator in patient safety found a simple way to save countless lives. First, do no harm-doctors, nurses and clinicians swear by this code of conduct. Yet in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country, errors are made every single day - avoidable, simple mistakes that often cost lives. Inspired by two medical mistakes that not only ended in unnecessary deaths but hit close to home, Dr. Peter Pronovost made it his personal mission to improve patient safety and make preventable deaths a thing of the past, one hospital at a time. Dr. Pronovost began with simple improvements to a common procedure in the ER and ICU units at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Creating an easy five-step checklist based on the most up-to-date research for his fellow doctors and nurses to follow, he hoped that streamlining the procedure itself could slow the rate of infections patients often died from. But what Dr. Pronovost discovered was that doctors and nurses needed more than a checklist: the day-to-day environment needed to be more patient-driven and staff needed to see scientific results in order to know their efforts were a success. After those changes took effect, the units Dr. Pronovost worked with decreased their rate of infection by 70%. Today, all fifty states are implementing Dr. Pronovost's programs, which have the potential to save more lives than any other medical innovation in the past twenty-five years. But his ideas are just the beginning of the changes being made by doctors and nurses across the country making huge leaps to improve patient care. In Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost shares his own experience, anecdotal stories from his colleagues at Johns Hopkins and other hospitals that have made his approach their own, alongside comprehensive research-showing readers how small changes make a huge difference in patient care. Inspiring and thought provoking, this compelling book shows how one person with a cause really can make a huge difference in our lives.