Background: Hospital medicine is the fastest‐growing medical field in the United States. Given a pressing shortage of hospi‐talist physicians and restrictions on resident duty hours, the number of physician assistants (PAs) in hospital medicine is only expected to increase. In 2006, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) identified 51 core competencies in hospital medicine. Limited [...]

Background: States in the United States have wide latitude in administering Medicaid, thus creating an opportunity to study interstate differences in quality and outcomes among Medicaid recipients. Studying statewise variations in preventable hospitalization (PH) rates for ambulatory‐sensitive conditions (ASC) can provide insights into the quality and access to health care services in this patient population. [...]

Background: Inadequate vaccination of eligible inpatients against influenza and pneumococcal infections is a gap in quality care that contributes to the spread of disease in the community. Rates of vaccination at Emory University hospitals were noted to be 40% with a desired rate > 90%. The objective of this study was to evaluate the reasons for [...]

Background: Blood transfusion raises many questions of safety and economics. We examined blood usage and its characteristics in patients taken care of by hospitalists, a group of physicians for whom there is a scarcity of published data. We also sought to determine if an educational intervention changed hospitalist transfusion practice patterns. Methods: Hospitalist transfusion practices [...]

Background: Delirium affects 50% of intensive care unit (ICU) patients and is associated with increased mortality and long‐term cognitive impairment. Instruments can accurately measure delirium; however, the sustainability and reliability of delirium measurement tools are unknown in usual practice. We therefore examined delirium assessments by ICU bedside nurses during routine clinical care compared with concurrent [...]

Background: Inappropriate fresh frozen plasma (FFP) prescriptions may account for at least some of the dramatic increase seen in FFP transfusions. In particular, FFP prescribed for bleeding prophylaxis prior to invasive procedures may be largely unwarranted. FFP should only be transfused when indicated, because like any medical therapy, it can cause harm. FFP can lead [...]

Background: Sepsis is a major cause of death in hospitalized patients. The preferred setting to care for patients with sepsis is the medical intensive care unit (MICU). However if the MICU is full, patients are admitted to overflow units. Protocols for management of sepsis patients that include specific pro‐cess‐of‐care interventions are associated with better outcomes. [...]

Background: Assessing perioperative risk is a common challenge in daily internal medicine practice. Risk models are sparse and focus primarily on cardiac and pulmonary risk. Little has been established regarding the implications of more common diagnoses. Affecting 23.5 million Americans, diabetes mellitus has long been associated with poor wound healing. In the American College of [...]

Background: There are limited tools to aid in stratifying peri‐operative risk in orthopedic surgical patients. Frailty has been associated with poor clinical outcomes yet is difficult to measure. We sought to better understand the implications of frailty measures for perioperative risk stratification. We hypothesized that a simplified modification of the Canadian Study of Health and [...]

Background: Nearly two thirds of U.S. hospitals are served by hospitalists who work under a variety of practice models. Differences in hospitalist practice patterns and satisfaction of individual hospitalists across these models are unknown. Methods: We surveyed a randomized stratified sample of 3105 potential hospitalists augmented by 662 hospitalist members of 3 multi‐state hospitalist companies. [...]