Health Night Out – October 26th Be your own health advocate

Phyllis Ketring

Monday, October 26 at 7:00 p.m. in the MountainView Country Club Ballroom, SaddleBrooke Health and Wellness will host Karen Mercereau, a clinical RN specializing in patient advocacy education.

Navigating the medical system today can be daunting and leave one open to preventable medical errors. At present there are 12 million misdiagnoses in the United States annually and up to 440,000 deaths per year due to preventable medical errors in the hospitalized population. What can one do? Protect yourself by learning why and how to be your own health advocate. Learn questions to ask your physician, learn how to get the most reliable health information possible to inform your healthcare decisions and learn how to protect yourself if hospitalization is necessary.

All this and more is included in the presentation, Be Your Own Health Advocate.

A clinical RN for 47 years, Karen Mercereau is recognized as a visionary leader in health care, known for her ability to transcend challenges and to create opportunity from complexity. For her work as founder of RN Patient Advocates in 2002, a new practice model in professional nursing, Karen was awarded the Pioneer Award from the National Association of Business Owners in 2005 as well as the Purpose Prize Fellowship in 2010.

A native New Yorker who relocated to Arizona in 1978, Karen has spent decades in critical care nursing. She also has led national programs that improve health care delivery systems. Karen has been a clinical instructor for paramedics and student nurses.

After developing the model of independent RN Patient Advocates (iRNPA) over seven years of practice, Karen has developed the RN Patient Advocates/University of Arizona College of Nursing Learning Intensive to prepare qualified clinical RNs to become independent RN Patient Advocates. This program is recognized as the national leader in patient advocacy education for RNs.

Karen is now leading the way for iRNPAs to function nationally by providing one of the RNPA tools: the MEDiKEY. This innovative tool directly addresses the need to facilitate communication throughout the medical system as well as to dramatically reduce the incidence of preventable medical errors.

Learn how to be your own health advocate in today’s complex medical environment at Health Night Out on Monday, October 26. As always, The Bistro will offer a special healthy menu selection on that evening so you can enjoy dinner out before attending Health Night Out.

Mark your calendars for this most valuable presentation:

Date: Monday October 26

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Place: MountainView Ballroom

Health Night Out is a free educational presentation for residents of SaddleBrooke, The Preserve and SaddleBrooke Ranch and is brought to you by SaddleBrooke Health and Wellness. It offers a unique opportunity to learn from highly skilled local medical practitioners about a wide variety of health issues.