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| BOOK AWARDS:
Winner of Mom's Choice Award - Health/Fitness/Safety
Winner of the Best How-To Book of the Year, 2009, San Francisco Book Festival Awards Winner of the Allbooks Review Editor's Choice Award for Best Health Book of 2009
Winner of the Best How-To Book of the Year, 2009, Nashville Book Festival Awards Winner of best How-To Book for the 2008 DIY Book Festival Awards
http://www.indiebookawards.com
BOOK REVIEWS AND ARTICLES
You've heard the horror stories about medication mixups and exposure to serious infections. Martine Ehrenclou, author of Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive, tells you how not to become one of them.
Ehrenclou interviewed doctors, nurses, social workers, and families, and she distills the information she gained into calming, practical advice."
Video Podcast
Book Review
Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive by Martine Ehrenclou, M.A., gives partners in care a gameplan to make sure that your family member doesn’t add to the negative statistics. This book has received numerous accolades including: Best Health Book of 2009 from the Allbooks Review Editor’s Choice Awards; Finalist in the Health Book of the Year 2000 — National Indie Excellence Awards; Finalist in the Health category of the National Best Books 2009 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News; and Winner of Mom’s Choice Award – Health/Fitness/Safety, 2010. In addition, every single reader review on Amazon is a glowing Five-Star endorsement – which is highly unusual, even for great products.
This is a book you probably thought you'd already heard of, because it seems so obvious that it should have been written. Put together through hundreds of hours of interviews with medical personnel, it is the brainchild of Martine Ehrenclou, someone who - like so many of us - has had to deal with the vast labyrinthine hospital system without a roadmap in an attempt to get the best care for a family member or loved one. Ehrenclou decided to draw the roadmap. Critical Conditions is a well-organized guide to getting your personal patient the care he or she needs and is paying for. The book would be good reading for any of us, because at any time, you could find yourself in the ER with a sick child or a friend who's just had an accident.
"Martine Enrenclou offers a practical, deliberate, and insightful guide for anyone faced with the heart wrenching prospect of having a loved one undergo hospitalization. Martine introduces you to the concept of patient advocacy and your place in that process. This is a book that you should purchase, familiarize yourself with, and place on the bookshelf for that likely time when you will need it. If you have an understanding of what you are up against from the beginning, the odds for your loved ones survival are greatly enhanced. It is a solid and practical book for almost anyone and well worth your time, money, and effort."
Martine Ehrenclou presents a book that will encourage family members and friends to be more active in the patient's care. There is no need for patients to suffer needlessly or to be the victims of medication errors.
'Critical Conditions' A book everyone should consider owning
"The book essentially contains step-by-step information and tips in dealing with all aspects of a hospital stay in order to ensure that your loved one receives the best care possible. The most important point that I got from reading the book was to make sure that there is someone staying with the patient at all times in order to look out for the patient and to help prevent medical errors. Ehrenclou's handbook details all of the steps that you need to take and the details that you need to write down when talking to the nurses and doctors. Also included is information of how to prevent medical errors, prevent infectious diseases, prevent fatal falls, how to get past language barriers, what to do if you live out of town, and other pertinent issues. You can tell that the author is very passionate about the topic at hand and she has left no stone unturned in her presentation of the steps one needs to take to ensure that proper care is received. I think that this book will be beneficial to anyone who has a loved one in the hospital and also to students in nursing school or medical school. There is a lot of useful advice in the book, some of which could truly make a difference, especially to the hospital novice."
"At any time...something could occur that would send me to the ICU or even a heart unit. I would then want my daughters to go to my bookcase and bring Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive with them on their initial visit. The book states clearly that the medical system is overworked with not enough staff and the administrators watching the bottom line because the insurance companies are screaming for cost cutting. 'A reported quarter of a million deaths in hospitals nationwide were found to be preventable.' Think of that! Keeping this book handy can keep your loved one from becoming a statistic. It advises how and when to talk to the doctors. And to be certain each and every doctor knows what is being prescribed for your friend or family member. Be sure they are never alone and question each and every drug they are given and what is its purpose. Check that your patient is getting the proper tests or operation, not one meant for the patient down the hall with a similar name. Check their meal trays for the proper diet. Coax them to eat and don't allow the tray to be whisked away before they know it is there. So many vital issues are covered, it's impossible to list everything. This guide is invaluable and I hope you never need to open it. If you do, however, know that all the answers to your questions are in here. And that you will be able to take your patient home - rather than attend their funeral."
"Hospital care has become hazardous to the patient's health." The proven statistics of hospital error related deaths are staggering! Sad, but never more true than the crisis that exists today. Did
we know it was coming? I believe many of us did and those that
didn't, must not have listened to the news back in the late
70's, when many
Martine Ehrenclou has made a significant contribution to health care and her book will save lives. She has authored a new book for patients and their loved ones that deals with going to the hospital - and getting out alive. This handbook for patients should be mandatory reading before and during any hospital stay. Ms. Ehrenclou deals directly with practical advice for patients about what to do to avoid being injured or killed by a medical error during a hospital stay. First and foremost she warns that a patient should have a friend with them at all times during their stay to make sure that the right medicine is administered in the right quantity and at the right time. This can be the difference between life and death. The San Francisco Business Review recommends the book as a practical guide for patients.
The guide, by Martine Ehrenclou, a writer and public relations/marketing executive, is published by Lemon Grove Press. Ehrenclou says such scrutiny is needed "to prevent medical errors, medication mistakes, fatal falls, the spread of hospital-acquired infectious diseases and more." The book, based on 150 interviews with nurses, doctors, hospital staffers and family members, is full of pragmatic advice in short, specific sub-sections on topics like "Insist on Pain Management" or "Introduce Yourself to the Primary Nurse." The book's title is provocative, but the warning is similar to one given for years by health-care quality experts. It's worth a look - for business readers, consumers, hospital managers, maybe even a politician or two."
If you've ever had a loved one hospitalized for any length of time, you know how agonizingly frustrating it can be to sit helplessly by, praying for things to turn out okay.This book is an incredible resource. It is definitely one to keep handy, just in case.
Having herself been a victim in the labyrinth of a misguided, though well-meaning American healthcare system, Martine Ehrenclou, M.A. has written Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive. Borne out of necessity, the idea for this book came after the author experienced what she believes was the unnecessary demise of both her mother and her godmother at the hands of an overloaded and occasionally inept healthcare system. This book is by no means an emphatic doctor-bashing recount; instead, it is a matter-of-fact analysis of the American health care system and a simple step-by-step way of averting seemingly avoidable errors. The author herself states more than once that she believes that health care professionals are doing the very best they can; however, the inherently imperfect system makes errors virtually unavoidable. After over 150 interviews with nurses, doctors, social workers, and other hospital staff, Ehrenclou repeatedly arrives at the same conclusion throughout the manuscript, "you must have someone, a family member, in the hospital with the patient at all times. Hospital care is in crisis." In 17 concise chapters, Ms. Ehrenclou writes from a patient-focused approach, which encourages family members to be proactive and vigilant in the care of their loved ones. The author does not purport to have all the answers; however she does bring very informative and helpful suggestions on how to compensate for overworked doctors and nurses, who are physically and emotionally spent. The author provides critical suggestions to potential caregivers, in an era when patients-to-nurses ratio is at an all-time high, despite laws implemented in many states to counter this troubling trend. Critical Conditions puts a decisively strong emphasis on communication strategies and avid documentation. This book simultaneously acts as a handbook, a diary of patient progress, a procedural manual, and a conversation reminder for the reader. The 80-page Quick Reference Guide at the back of the book contains a section for notes, a glossary of hospital terminology, and a list of useful websites for further research. It is an essential tool for anyone with a loved one in the hospital. Why, you may ask, is such a guide important? The simple truth is that a sick person under heavy medication and debilitating pain cannot have the presence of mind and fortitude of will to advocate for themselves against professional healthcare representatives. This book is separated into three essential parts, the first of which is the informative introduction, which teaches family members how to be effective advocates by equipping the reader with a deconstructed breakdown of the hospital system. She explains the importance of taking detailed notes and provides space in the book in which to do so. There are two whole chapters dedicated to explaining the roles of the different hospital staff, from the primary nurse to the specializing physician in the care of patients. Her pragmatism is bold and intelligent, as she states in one instance that since it is proven that attentive and present family members garner better care, then one should bring cookies and candy with a thank you card for the nursing staff to show your appreciation. Three chapters are dedicated to the prevention of medical errors, tragic falls and infectious diseases such as pneumonia and MRSA, all of which are alarmingly prevalent and more or less avoidable in the US system of healthcare. According to the Institute of Medicine, "A hospital patient can expect, on average, to be subjected to more than one medication error each day." Thus, an attentive family member will take all the precautionary measures listed by Ms. Ehrenclou to avoid being just another statistic. Some common sense advice, such as wash your hands and avoid transferring bacteria from inside to outside and vice versa may seem redundant, but bear repeating because, as healthy human beings, we can sometimes become insensitive and carelessly forgetful of the simple things. As Critical Conditions emphasizes a patient-focused approach, the last eight chapters of the book are dedicated to the patient and their family. With useful guidance on such issues as cultural differences, language barriers and what to do if you live out of town, this book gently guides patients and their families in the right direction to maximize care and well-being in a time of emotional and physical crisis. It also includes a section on how to best utilize the services of the hospital social worker and how to not only support and care for your loved one, but also how to take care of yourself in this time of trial. The sensitive issue of what to do and the options to consider in the instance of critical care is also addressed with informative captions on HIPAA Laws, Advance Directives, Power of Attorney, Living Will and DNRs. What I love about this book is its positive outlook and appeal to the readers, as blatantly captured in the subtitle, The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive (notice that last word). And so, the last chapter, Discharge Planning and Aftercare, focuses on what to do after your loved one has made it through. Hosea 4:6 says "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." This powerful word is reiterated by the author who says in lay terms that the "...greatest antidote to a state of helplessness is knowledge". When your loved ones are lying in a hospital bed, will you simply let medical care happen to them, or will you be a knowledgeable, educated, proactive family member, firmly equipped with the tools to accompany your fervent prayers for the healing touch of Jesus?
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Winner of the best How-To Book of 2009, 
Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Winner, Best Health Book, 2008
National Indie Excellence Awards - Finalist Health Book of the Year 2009
Finalist in the How-To Category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Los Angeles Times Magazine
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2009 Martine Ehrenclou. All Rights Reserved.
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