We all assume that going to the hospital will help us recover from an illness or injury. Going to any facility where a lot of other sick people are treated, however, can result in patients actually getting worse before they get better, simply because they “catch” someone else’s infections. Spread by healthcare workers as they move from sick patient to sick patient, or by visitors who may have touched unclean surfaces in the hospital before going into a patient’s room, these healthcare-acquired infections are difficult and costly to treat.
What most people don’t know is that healthcare acquired infections are preventable. Written by Dr. Maryanne McGuckin, an expert in infection prevention with 35 years of experience, The Patient Survival Guide (Demos Publishing), will lead us from being a patient at risk, to one knowledgeable about the simple precautions one must take to avoid easily preventable healthcare-acquired infections.
Dr. Maryanne McGuckin’s career spans several faculty and staff positions at the University of Pennsylvania. She most recently was a member of the Senior Scholars / Senior Fellows program with the Health Policy Department at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Toni L. Goldfarb is president of TLG Publications, a medical communications firm.
For information, please visit Dr. McGuckin’s informative website: www.patientsurvivalguide.net.
Available at all major bookstores and online outlets
The Patient Survival Guide: 8 Simple Solutions to Prevent Hospital and Healthcare-Associated Infections by Dr. Maryanne McGuckin
Published by Demos Health and distributed by Publishers Group West
ISBN: 9781936303311
Paperback: $16.95