Background: Telemedicine emerged as an innovative approach to addressing staffing shortages for hospitalists in resource-limited areas (1), the COVID-19 surge (2), and off-hour shifts (3). Telemedicine can be adapted to non-traditional hospitalist roles, i.e. the triagist where a hospitalist assesses patients for potential admissions and supports outpatient to inpatient transitions (4). Modifying the triagist to [...]

Background: Statistics show at least 5.7 million Americans have a diagnosis of heart failure (HF), and they account for >1 million admissions every year in the United States. Prolonged length of stay (LOS) often leads to higher mortality and increased healthcare costs. At our urban tertiary academic medical center, we have incorporated a Microsoft Teams [...]

Background: To date, there are limited reports around the use of well-designed information technology tools to enhance communication during interdisciplinary rounds (IDRs). Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) is a field that studies the integration of information technology into the workflow of healthcare teams. In collaboration with our technology innovations center, we developed a Microsoft Teams [...]

Background: To mitigate COVID-19 related hospital crowding, our hospital internal medicine (HIM) department collaborated with our emergency department (ED) to launch a service in which an HIM team was placed in the ED to assist with triage. The goal was to expedite patients with a clear need for admission, while diverting others who could be [...]

Background: The electronic health record has grown and advanced in the last decade and in recent years, basic interoperability has been successfully adopted. Organizations are able to see data from other organizations. Prescriptions are no longer hand written and are sent electronically to pharmacies. One major barrier that continues to exist, however, is electronic communication [...]

Background: Ongoing staffing shortages, high bed occupancy rates and post COVID changes are putting substantial strain not only on the inpatient environment, but also on the Emergency Department (ED). Increase in the number of boarded patients and length of boarding times pose risk to optimal patient care. Across the nation, the role of hospitalist as [...]

Background: 22% of the hospitals overall STAR rating is based on readmission reduction for the following disease specific groups: pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acute myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure. Creating strategies surrounding prevention of readmissions that create workload balance leads to improved ability to manage these patients. The hospitalist medicine, emergency medicine, pulmonary, [...]

Background: Early discharge from the hospital improves hospital throughput as well as patient and staff satisfaction. At times, our emergency room tends to board many admitted patients for more than 24 hours, which further distresses our patients and staff. We noticed that the total number of patients leaving the hospital earlier in the day decreased [...]

Background: The social determinants of health (SDOH) are widely recognized as having an important impact on health and mortality with up to 80% of health outcomes shaped by SDOH domains ( the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age). There is strong evidence that addressing unmet social needs can lower healthcare [...]

Background: Correct home medication histories are critical to prevent harm during a patient’s hospitalization [1]. The wrong dose of a home medication or omission of a medication can result in serious drug toxicity or withdrawal. However, hospital medicine providers and pharmacists may have limited time and resources to perform thorough medication histories for all patients [...]