Updated July 31, 2014.

 As a caregiver, you might find the times your loved one needs to spend in the hospital some of the most stressful caregiving times. Although there is much that is out of your control as a hospital visitor, there are simple ways you can maintain a healing atmosphere when you loved one needs hospital care.

1. If you have any choice in hospitals, for example, if your loved one's primary care or specialist has admitting privileges in more than one hospital, consider your choice as a consumer carefully.

Prepare for this before it's an emergency. Talk to friends and look through online reviews, including reviews on non-medical related consumer websites such as Yelp. You can also call the hospital and ask to speak to patients relations and inquire about their nurse to patient ratio on the general floors. One of the best indicators of good care is how many patients each nurse has to take care of. If a nurse has seven patients to manage as opposed to three or four,  they simply can't be as available.

2. Realize hospital culture is a different culture

One of the best ways to understand how a hospital works is to think of it as an entirely different country than the Land of the Well. Hospitals have their own language, set of values, and timelines. For example, what might seem like an urgent matter to us often takes a long time to address. Sometimes we can impact this, and sometimes we can't. Learning the language, acronyms, terminology and hierarchy of the hospital culture can go a long ways towards feeling a bit more in control of the situation.

Being able to speak to hospital staff in their own language dramatically increases your chance of getting what you need for your loved one.

3 .Maintain a skillful hospital persona

It's not quite as dire as the "nice guys finish last" but hospital interactions definitely require that you walk a fine line between friendly and cordial and understanding of the demands on the staff and also be ready to slip into serious threat tone and even rant and rave tone.

Remember the video of the Honeybadger c. 2010 "Honeybadger doesn't care, he just takes what he wants." Channel your inner honeybadger. Not all the time, but when the situation warrants it. The person who gets the best care in the American hospital system is the one who demands it.

I often tell people the staff should be saying "Oh that, Mr/Mrs So So, they are really nice and so sweet and thoughtful but don't push them too far or they will lose it!

4. Know who your advocates are

If you are unable to resolve a difficulty with the staff, there are two primary places of contact. The first is the nurse manager for the floor. There is a nurse manager on duty 24/7 and they are very concerned that things on their floor go smoothly. They even have the capacity to boss around the docs, or the best ones do. The second place to turn to for advocacy is the patient relations department or the patient advocate. This person is usually only available from 9 am until 5 pm, but they can be a valuable advocate in settling problems. If you still don't get answers, and the problem could cause a liability for the hospital, you can call risk management. The job of risk management is to keep the hospital from getting sued, so they are very invested in keeping patients and family members happy.