By Mark Harvey

If you have to go into the hospital for something, what’s the first thing on your mind? Right: Getting through/surviving/recovering from whatever it is that’s putting you there.

And when you’re actually in the hospital, what’s the first thing on your mind? Right: Getting out of the hospital!

So, would you care to hazard a guess as to one of the biggest and most consistent points of screw-ups in our health care system?

Well, OK …

Sure, there’s that …

Yeah, point taken …

All right, let me try again: What would you imagine is one of the junctures in our health care system where we are most likely to screw up, thus increasing the likelihood of landing back in the hospital?

Right: Trying to get out of the hospital!

Specifically, we’re often so focused on getting out of there, that we don’t focus on what we have to do to stay out of there, so we end up back in there. Think “discharge planning.”

If we’re lucky, a discharge planner, or a nurse, or someone else will come in and sit down with us and whomever it is we have with us (and is going to help take care of us), and go over some inportant stuff, like what to expect, what to do, what not to do, who to call for help, meds, what appointments to make, ad infinitum. We nod, smile, say “OK” or “mm-hmm” and, maybe, ask a few miscellaneous questions — but what we’re really thinking is, “Get me out of here!”

So, we get out of there, get home and screw up … because we didn’t listen, or didn’t hear, or didn’t understand, or didn’t write it down and just don’t remember. And, when we screw up at a time like this, almost nothing good will happen.

I have a suggestion: go to www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11376-discharge-planning-checklist.pdf (or go to www.medicare.gov; click on “Forms, Help & Resources”; scroll down to “Free Medicare publications; and enter “Your Discharge Planning Checklist” in the search area. You’ll get a nifty little six-page checklist that will help you get through and keep track of all the stuff you’re supposed to do (or not do) in order to stay out of the hospital.

Yes, this is generated by Medicare, but it’s actually a darn good little checklist for anybody who’s going into the hospital for anything. And it’s free, so…

Print it. I would suggest that you print it, and actually read it, before you go into the hospital so that you have a chance to think about and understand it. Hopefully, you’re going to have someone with you and then helping to take care of you after the hospitalization, so have her/him/them read it, too.

We tend to not feel so great when we’re in the hospital, so it might be smart to have someone who’s firing on all cylinders listening, asking questions and actually writing things down!

This isn’t rocket science, and the checklist isn’t written for Ph.D.s. It’s written for you and me, in understandable language and can genuinely help — if we let it. If some parts don’t apply, fine; but for the parts that do, take the time, get it right and write it down.

Not a computer person? OK, then call any of the numbers at the end of this column and ask a genuinely decent person to print one out and mail it to you. They’ll do that. Free.

Or you could just blunder headlong into a hospitalization, secure in the notion that everything will go swimmingly, and that you’ll emerge, magically armed with everything you need to know and do, including the wherewithal to do it. I admire your faith!

I’d take the checklist.

Mark Harvey is the director of information and assistance for the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He can be reached by email at harvemb@dshs.wa.gov; by phone at 360-532-0520 in Aberdeen, 360-942-2177 in Raymond, or 360-642-3634; or through Facebook at Olympic Area Agency on Aging-Information & Assistance.