Background: Pneumonia is a common entity associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Guidelines for the management of both CAP and HCAP have been recently published, with evidence that compliance is associated with better outcomes. These guidelines demand an accurate diagnosis, but there are few studies documenting that this occurs. We sought to determine how frequently […]

Background: Death in the United States frequently occurs in institutions, despite the majority of persons indicating a preference to die at home. Little research has examined how well individual preferences compare with actual site of death. We sought to determine independent predictors for agreement between preferred and actual place of death among a population of […]

Background: Admitted patients boarded in the emergency department (ED) leads to hospital diversion. Active bed management by hospitalists can improve throughput. Minimizing wasted patient movement and inappropriate bed utilization may improve throughput for hospitals routinely operating at near‐capacity. We developed a hospitalist‐led team to care for boarded, admitted ED patients in an effort to minimize […]

Background: Hospitalists play an increasing role in resident education. The acquisition of new knowledge is a primary goal of residency training. Retrieving and retaining influential primary and secondary medical literature can be challenging for house officers. We set out to investigate the effect of a USB drive loaded wilh landmark scientific articles on house staff […]

Background: Demand for hospitalists continues to rise. Despite reports of high overall provider satisfaction, hospitalist retention and recruitment remain challenging. Identifying specific issues most important to hospitalists may guide efforts to improve and sustain morale. As part of an ongoing longitudinal cohort study, our study sought to evaluate, and guide division performance as related to […]

Background: Better sleep is associated with improved cognition, mood, and physical health in older adults. Despite the potential health benefits, obtaining quality sleep when hospitalized has been described as difficult. Additionally, perceived control may be a key determinant of sleep, as patients' control is dramatically reduced during hospitalization because of dependency on nursing staff and […]

Background: Interhospital transfer (IHT) is a common event whereby patients are transferred from community hospitals to tertiary‐care hospitals for specialized care or further workup in the setting of a diagnostic dilemma. Hospitalists are frequently the principal mediators for IHT, both as sending and receiving physicians. Data from an initial chart review at our tertiary‐care hospital […]

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common type of nosocamial infection, with 80% associated with indwelling urinary catheters. The relative frequency of catheter‐associated UTIs (CAUTIs) imparts greater clinical and cost implications to patients and hospitals. Since Medicare and other payers stopped reimbursing hospitals for expenses incurred for the treatment of CAUTIs that are […]

Background: Although numerous professional organizations recommend routine screening for intimate partner violence (IPV), and the Joint Commission for Accreditation for Health Care Organizations requires screening for IPV in in patient admissions, screening rates in outpatient and inpatient settings remain low. Barriers to screening for IPV include uncertainty about how to elicit this information, uncertainty about […]

Background: With increasing pressure to shorten the length of stay of hospitalized patients, physicians are discharging more patients with tests pending at discharge (TPAD). Little is known about how physicians currently manage TPADs. Methods: Using the same survey instrument, we conducted a cross‐sectional survey of hospitalists programs at 8 academic medical centers, as well as […]