Josie's Story

Josie's Story: A Mother's Inspiring Crusade to Make Medical Care Safe by Sorrel King

Wow... I could not put this book down!! Every Patient Safety Director should read this book! Sorrel allows you to put your arms around Josie and her family - and see a tragic medical mistake from the family's perspective. You will be amazed at her strength and determination. It will make you want to be a better Patient Safety Advocate.

"King is an extraordinary woman, who took a paralyzing event- the medical accident that killed her 18-month-old daughter, Josie- and turned it into a national crusade. She transformed herself from having every intention of taking down the mega-hospital, Baltimore's Johns Hopkins, where, by every estimation, little Josie should have received top-notch care, to working with the facilities doctors, nurses, administrators, and even their lawyers to create a system that would eliminate medical errors. It wasn't easy. After she had watched helplessly, with doctors ignoring her pleas for help, while Josie deteriorated before her eyes, her grief and rage were nearly all consuming. The family hired a lawyer but Hopkins offered a settlement before a lawsuit was filed. But sometime between the investigation and the settlement, she had an epiphany. Wherever such revelations originate, it made her resolved to use the settlement money to create the Josie King Foundation, dedicated to the elimination of the nearly 100,000 deaths per annum caused by medical mistakes. In this moving, never preachy or strident memoir, she recounts Josie's experience, the evolution of the foundation, and the principals of the so-called Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) in practice today in hundreds of hospitals, thanks to Josie and her mom."
-Donna Chavez

It's definitely worth the time to read.

Visit the Josie King Foundation at www.josieking.org. There are books, articles, a DVD, a nursing award opportunity, ideas on Rapid Response Teams and Sorrel's speaking engagement schedule and more.