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Donna Drouin

Donna has 20+ years health care experience in a variety of areas including quality improvement, IT, health plan operations, finance, and as a caregiver. She has been an advocate for patient and family engagement.  She is the recent past Co-chair and founding member of Middlesex Hospital Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and currently serves on other PFACs and committees as a patient member.


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Health Care Blog

Three Vaccines for Fall: What You Need to Know
According to the NY Times, here’s who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when. By Ap…
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How the Inflation Reduction Act Reduces Health Care Costs
CAP American Progress ARTICLE AUG 12, 2022  Nicole Rapfogel & Emily Gee The Inflation Reduction …
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Hospital Visitation Restrictions Are Hurting Patients and Nurses — New protocols and COVID mitigation techniques can enable safe visitation
Medpage Today |  by Karen Cox, PhD, RN, and Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH September 2, 2021 As COVID…
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Becoming a More Empowered Patient

First, we have chosen to share a video by Consumer Health Choices: Talking With Your Doctor. In it you will see how preparing for you appointment can make a difference.

We have chosen a second video by the National Patient Safety Foundation: AskMe3, to share with you. Here, you learn that there are three important questions to ask your doctor whenever you see him or her.

Finally, we are sharing a series of videos by Dartmouth-Hitchcock:
Self-Advocacy: The Empowered Patient,
Self-Advocacy: Preparing for your Visit,
Self-Advocacy: Why It's Important To Share and
Self-Advocacy: Doing Research.

For the complete story, please click here

5 Things to Know

  1. What you need to know in the Hospital
  2. 15 Steps You Can Take To Reduce Your Risk of a Hospital Infection
  3. Selecting Doctors & Hospitals
  4. What to do to avoid medication error
  5. AHRQ Director Helps Consumers Navigate the Health Care System in a New Advice Column on the Web

You've Suffered Medical Harm - Now What Do You Do?

According to a recent article published by ProPublica titled: So You’ve Become a Patient Safety Statistic – Now What? by Marshall Allen there are six things to do….

  1. Get a copy of medical records.
  2. Make sure the incident is reported internally.
  3. If the patient has died, order a forensic autopsy.
  4. Consider calling an attorney.
  5. Meet with the doctor and hospital officials.
  6. Report the incident to regulators, who can investigate.

For greater detail and more important information, please read the full article.