Background: Peripherally inserted central catheters [PICCs] are often used for venous access in hospitalized patients. Prevalence and outcomes of short-term PICC use (

Background: Reducing the economic and healthcare system burden of venous thromboembolism (VTE) is critical, given the estimated annual costs in the US ranging from $13.5-$27.2 billion (2011 US dollars). The EINSTEIN clinical trials showed rivaroxaban (RIVA) to be as effective as warfarin (WAR) for VTE with shorter hospital lengths of stay.  This study was undertaken [...]

Background:  Teaching status has often been studied as a potential systems-level variable associated with patient outcomes; however, limited information regarding the relationship between out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) outcomes and teaching status exist. Methods: Using the National Inpatient Sample database, we selected adults ≥18 years old admitted with a principle diagnosis of non-traumatic OHCA (ICD-9 CM [...]

Background: Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are frequently hospitalized emergently. Studies that describe the factors associated with HCC-related mortality during hospitalizations are limited. We sought to use a nationally representative database to investigate whether a weekend versus non-weekend admission was associated with increased odds of mortality in hospitalized patients with HCC. Methods: We studied patients [...]

Background: Factors that impact the length of stay (LOS) in hospitalized patients have not been well characterized. We used a dataset from a large national cohort of hospitalized patients to determine if patient demographics, admission month and weekday, payer type, and other hospital care variables are associated with LOS in hospitalized patients. Methods: We used [...]

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) is recommended to improve compliance with patient end-of-life wishes and to ensure appropriate use of healthcare resources. However, most American adults have neither living wills nor advance directives. Hospital physicians play a critical role in discussing and executing advance care plans, and stronger doctor-patient relationships may help increase rates of [...]

Background: Code Blues, or in-hospital cardiopulmonary arrests, are high intensity, often fatal events occurring frequently within the hospital. National data reviews estimate that survival to discharge following an in-hospital cardiac event is about 24.4%. Further analysis has shown lower survival rates when comparing night shift physicians with day shift physicians (20.7% and 27.5% respectively), but [...]

Background: Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and second leading cause of cancer death among men in the US. Approximately three million prostate cancer survivors are living in the US according to 2014 estimate by American Cancer Society. Little is known about the risk factors and the causes of medical admissions associated with [...]

Background: Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding and delays in ED throughput have several important consequences , such as boarding of admitted patients in the ED, longer hospital stays and delay in effective inpatient discharge planning (1). Longer ED boarding time and delay in inpatient discharge process are parts of a vicious cycle of internal bottleneck contributing [...]

Background: Obesity affects a large majority of the U.S. population, and hospitalizations may represent opportunities to intervene and promote weight loss.  We sought to determine if multidisciplinary patient-centered inpatient weight loss consults, post-discharge telephone text messages, and primary care follow up could result in weight loss. Methods: We conducted a feasibility study comparing 25 obese [...]