Hospital patient care is becoming hazardous to the patient's health. There must be someone---a family member---to act as sentinel to prevent medical errors. "Critical Conditions" is a new book about how to be a proactive advocate for your hospitalized loved one in order to prevent medical error, medication mistakes, fatal falls and the spread of hospital-acquired infectious diseases. "Critical Conditions" is a step-by-step guide based on over 150 interviews with registered nurses, physicians and hospital staff, and the author's own experiences with hospitalized family members and hundreds of hours of research. A reported quarter of a million deaths in hospitals nationwide were found to be preventable (The Fifth Annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, 2008). If someone has a parent, spouse, sibling or child in the hospital, they must get actively involved in the patient's care to monitor and oversee the medical care that is provided.