During your stay at Morgan Medical Center, we want to provide you with the best care possible. By following these steps, we can ensure a quick recovery and avoid potential safety errors.
Prepare an Information Kit
Even if you don’t plan to visit a hospital anytime soon, preparing an information kit can be helpful during those unpredictable emergencies.
This kit should include a list of your medications and dosages, diseases and medical conditions, allergies to medications or food, and physicians’ and health care providers’ contact information. You can further personalize your information kit by adding anything that you might think would be helpful or pertinent to your medical care.
Ask Questions
During your time in the hospital, it’s important that you ask questions. These questions should revolve around what medication you will have to take, which tests or procedures will be performed and why, what does recovery entail, and which providers will be assigned to you during your stay.
You are an important member of your healthcare team, so be assertive and ask questions if you don’t understand something.
Medical Safety
As a patient, you can play a role in preventing medical errors. Double-check your wristband and paperwork for any spelling errors or inaccurate information. Monitor medications given and understand the reason why they are given. Make sure your doctors and nurses are aware of any allergies you may have. If you experience discomfort, let your medical team know. By being mindful and participating in your medical care, you can assure medical mistakes won’t be made.
Personal Safety
Your goal should also be to keep yourself safe from further illness or injury while recovering. You can protect yourself against infections by remembering to:
- Wash your hands regularly.
- Ask everyone else around you to wash their hands before they touch you.
Clean hands help lower the risk of spreading germs. Anyone who comes to visit you should wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer. You can also ask medical staff if catheters or IVs are necessary. If they are needed, you can periodically ask if they can be removed as they can become a risk for infection.
Prevent Falls
Falls in hospitals are a significant problem and patients of all ages are vulnerable to them. Falls often happen when patients who shouldn’t move by themselves try to get up without assistance. If you need to get out of bed, you should:
- Call a nurse by pressing your call button before getting out of bed. And get up slowly.
- Wear non-skid socks, slippers, or shoes that won’t slip.
- Clear a safe path so you have plenty of room to move around.
- Lower the bed height and side rails.
- Talk to your healthcare team if your medicine makes you feel unsteady or dizzy, sleepy, light-headed, sluggish, or confused.
Stay Active
One of the major challenges of being in the hospital is becoming weak and losing strength.
Take a walk around the hospital, unless there is a medical reason you can’t do so. And move your legs and ankles while lying down. Ask your doctor about compression devices or leg pumps to wear while in bed or sitting down to help blood flow in your legs and feet.
Bottom line is you are the most important part of your own care team, and we trust you know your body better than anyone else. Our staff priorities your safety and strives to make our medical center a home for everyone who walks through our doors. Whether you have a specific medical concern, need a health screening, or are simply due for a regular checkup with a physician, visit Morgan Medical Center and learn more about our services online.