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Hospital infections leave a lasting impact on the individuals and families who had to experience them. For Mary Brennan-Taylor, hospital infections took the life of her mother, Alice Brennan, who passed away in 2009 after entering the hospital for pain and swelling in her leg.
Hear advice from consumer advocates on patient safety.
Medical recalls can indicate potential risk of serious injury or death to patients, but they often go unnoticed.
Surgeon and author Atul Gawande, M.D., discusses the surgical checklist on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Learn about MRSA from the people who have had personal experiences with this harmful superbug.
You’ve heard of UFOs but have you heard of RFOs? 194 Pennsylvanians could tell you about their RFO encounter last year – that’s how many cases of “retained foreign objects” were reported to that state’s Patient Safety Authority in 2008.
A new documentary, Money-Driven Medicine, offers a thoughtful perspective to the health care reform debate that couldn’t be timelier.
Your stories matter. We are listening—and we’re getting those at the highest levels of government to listen, too.
More people know about hospital acquired infections and medical errors than you might think, and not just from watching Oprah.
Helen Haskell, founder of Mothers Against Medical Error (MAME), became a patient safety advocate after her 15 year old son died from a medical error in 2000. Watch her story.
Dianne Parker became a lead patient safety activist after her husband, Willie, died from a combination of medical errors and a hospital-acquired MRSA infection. Watch her story…
Following a bike accident, Jimmy Jr. needed knee surgery hoping to be strong enough to play high school football. Instead he acquired MRSA…
Carole Moss has been a lead advocate on the effort to pass legislation requiring California hospitals to report their infection rates available to the public. The bill is named after her son, Nile, who died of MRSA, an antibiotic resistant superbug. The legislation also requires screening of patients for MRSA and isolating those that have it.
Drug industry lobbyists have been crawling all over Congress for months to make sure their interests are favored over consumers’ in the reauthorization of our federal drug-safety laws.
Missing from these conversations are the millions of us who take, pay for, and are bombarded by endless TV drug ads. Not to mention those who have suffered life-altering effects after taking unsafe drugs. These laws are supposed to ensure that the drugs we’re prescribed are safe -- and do what they claim. Make sure you get your say in these negotiations!
The Safe Patient Project is a Consumers Union campaign focused on eliminating medical harm, improving FDA oversight of prescription drugs and promoting disclosure laws that give information to consumers about health care safety and quality.