Background: In 2015, medical students in their clinical clerkships (traditionally known as third year medical students) began rotating directly with hospitalist attendings. As we began crafting the rotation, we sought to provide value that was not leveraged elsewhere in their clerkships. Different organizations, including the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and Association of American Medical […]

Background: Inpatient margins and hospital reimbursement have become increasingly dependent upon improving key metrics, such as length of stay and 30-day readmissions. Hospitalists typically lack access to credible, timely, and insightful metrics that inform their practice. In addition, individualized metrics, when available, struggle to properly normalize for patient complexity, warranted variations in care, shared decision-making, […]

Background: The transfer of patients between hospitals (interhospital transfer, IHT), exposes patients to risks of discontinuity of care. In this study, we aim to better understand which patients may (or may not) benefit from IHT by evaluating the impact of IHT on clinically important patient outcomes among a variety of patient diagnoses. Methods: We performed […]

Background: Handoff miscommunications are a leading source of medical errors. Medical error and adverse event rates decreased following implementation of the I-PASS handoff program (a bundled intervention using a structured mnemonic, I-PASS, and other initiatives to sustain implementation) in a pediatric research trial. Whether I-PASS can be implemented in settings outside academic pediatric institutions is […]

Background: Ensuring hospital-based Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) include members from diverse, vulnerable and underrepresented communities is important to ensure that all voices are represented and heard when providing input into hospital quality improvement and research efforts. However, ensuring diverse membership of PFACs remains a challenge. This study aims to describe strategies to recruit […]

Background: In a previous randomized trial we found that shorter ward rotations reduced attending physician burnout at rotation-end. This improvement was offset, however, by negative education outcomes among trainees. Therefore solutions to burnout other than simply shortening rotations are needed to preserve the educational mission. We examined additional data collected (but not yet presented) to […]

Background: In 2016, ACGME’s first Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) report found that trainees had limited knowledge of Quality Improvement (QI) and patient safety (PS) concepts.. Purpose: We have designed a free, interactive, web-based game named SafetyQuest (http://safetyquest.stanford.edu) to teach QI and PS concepts. Objectives include: 1) Increasing knowledge regarding actions to promote safety such […]

Background: Traditional inpatient procedural fasting practices lead to excessive periods of patient fasting. Patients are unnecessarily ordered to be nil per os (NPO) at midnight, independent of current recommendations and evidence specific to the type of procedure being performed or expected time for the procedure to occur. This approach is based largely on the assumption […]

Background: Recent widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has dramatically increased the amount of information quickly accessible to clinicians. Given recent pushes for interoperability and consumer generated data in EHRs, the volume of information will continue to grow. The result is clinicians who experience information overload and lack the time and ability to comprehensively […]

Background: Approximately 5-10% of the US population reports a Penicillin (PCN) allergy. Only 1 in 10 of these patients are found to have a positive reaction to PCN. This label comes at a grave cost, with higher incidences of multidrug-resistant nosocomial infections reported among these patients. With the lack of novel antibiotics and the alarming […]