editor’s letter
Much More
Than a Number
W
hen you’re in the hospital, sometimes it can feel like you’re just a number—
in specific, one of more than 37 million admissions into U.S. registered hospitals
every year, according to 2008 data from the American Hospital Association.
But the truth is that you’re definitely not. Your condition, illness, disease, surgery or injury
is unique to you—because it is happening to your body, and that’s like no one else’s.
Which means that as a patient you’re in the unique position of being able to help your
healthcare providers deliver the care that’s exactly right for you.
How do you do that? By speaking up and asking questions when
you don’t understand something, listening carefully to the
people caring for you, learning more about your condition, tests
and treatments and finding the support you need—medical,
financial and emotional—to set you on the road to recovery once
it’s time to check out.
Taking charge of your health and your care isn’t just an
opportunity, though. With our increasingly complex and costly
healthcare system it’s also become a responsibility. There’s a
payoff to being a proactive patient, though: Studies show, for
example, that those who can find and use basic health informa-
tion are less likely to be hospitalized, less likely to have a chronic
condition like high blood pressure or diabetes and less likely to
skip important preventive screenings and treatments like
mammograms and flu shots.
But the truth is that it can be hard to find and understand the
information you need, especially if you’re rarely or never in the ON OUR COVER Kristen Milligan
hospital. That’s why we created The Patient, an annual magazine guesses that she’s spent about 30
distributed in hospitals across the U.S. with one purpose: To give nights as a patient in hospitals since
you clear, understandable information that will help ensure her 2003 diagnosis of terminal liver
you have the best, safest hospital stay possible. cancer. But the New York mother of
So welcome to the premiere issue of The Patient! We hope you three and author hasn’t let that slow
enjoy it and would love to hear your thoughts and comments about her down: In 2007, she and husband
how we can continue to improve. Deric founded the nonprofit organiza-
tion Inheritance of Hope (IOH), which
Wishing you a quick recovery, hosts retreats for young families in
which one parent has a life-threatening
illness. Says Kristen, “These four-day
events create a legacy by giving
families the chance to make precious
Lorie A. Parch memories with their own family, while
Editor-in-Chief also creating a community of support
editor@thepatientmagazine.com with others who understand the
challenges they face.” IOH hopes to
host five retreats in 2010. To find out
more, go to inheritanceofhope.org.
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4 the patient magazine 2010
PT004__0FVP0_SP10LETTeditor.indd 4 2/8/10 8:09 AM
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