By: Deborah Cort Don’t let the medications you are taking have a negative effect on your health and well-being because you are not aware of how they may interact with each other. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are more than 2 million serious adverse drug reactions and 100,000 deaths every year from negative [...]

Deborah Cort RN, MSN, CRRN If you are like most people, the diagnosis of stroke conjures up images in your mind of long hospital stays, wheel chairs, inability to talk, being unable to care for yourself and even death. However, if you are aware of the signs and symptoms of stroke and get to a [...]

By Deborah Cort, MSN, CRRN Approximately 2 million people a year get a hospital-acquired, or nosocomial, infection, and as a result of these infections, one in 20 of these people die. In a recent article in “Hospital and Health Network,” Dr. Richard Shannon, chairman of the department of medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, [...]

By Deborah Cort Most of the time a hospital stay improves your health, however, sometimes a fall in the institution can cause it to deteriorate. A patient falling is a common safety incident that occurs in the hospital. More than 200,000 falls were reported to the National Patient Safety Agency from September 2005 to August [...]

By: Deborah Cort, RN, MSN, CRRN If you’re like most folks, you depend on your doctor to give you all of the medication safety information you need, and rightly so. No doubt, your physician writes every prescription with your improved health in mind. But just how well does your doctor know you? Well enough to [...]

By Deborah Cort, MSN, CRRN Approximately 12,000 physicians call themselves “hospitalists” nationwide (Society of Hospital Medicine Annual Meeting 2005). A hospitalist is a physician who focuses on the medical care of hospitalized patients. Once a patient is admitted, the hospitalist takes over for the primary care physician, directing and managing patient care and reporting the [...]