Background: Antipsychotics are frequently used in the hospital setting for managing both acute and chronic neuropsychiatric disorders. However, antipsychotics have been associated with higher rates of adverse events, including mortality, due to their association with QT prolongation, which can lead to fatal cardiac arrhythmias such as torsade de pointes, earning a black box warning for use in dementia related psychosis. Yet, [...]

Background: Patients admitted with heart failure (HF) have a 12 to 27%, 30-day readmission rate, resulting in decreased quality of life and increased cost of care. 2017 Heart Failure guidelines have recommended a pre-discharge pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide (pro-BNP) to establish post-discharge prognosis in patients with HF decompensation. We designed a study to evaluate the role [...]

Background: Since the “birth” of hospitalist in mid-nineties, it took 20 years to grow from zero to 50,000 physicians in 2016. In the U.S, internal medicine (IM) services are covered by different models, including teaching IM services and non-teaching services. Non-teaching services are attended by hospitalists or outpatient-practicing internists. Methods: We conducted a classical prospective [...]

Background: In 2016, around 94% of healthcare facility managers used locum tenens physicians in the previous 12 months. One-quarter of them were locum hospitalists, making hospitalists as the second most common service in demand for locum physicians. There are no prospective studies comparing the care of locum to non-locum hospitalists. Methods: We conducted a classical [...]

Background: Weekend admission to the hospital has been found to be associated with higher in-hospital mortality rates, but the cause for this phenomenon remains controversial. US based studies have been limited in their characterization of the weekend patient population, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the implications of this effect. Methods: A retrospective cohort [...]

Background: Alcoholic hepatitis (AH) related admissions have been increasing, and severe AH (as defined by a discriminant function [DF] > 32) can carry a one-month mortality rate of up to 50% (Crabb et al). With rising mortality from alcoholic liver disease, early detection of alcohol use disorder to achieve cessation and prevent progression to alcoholic [...]

Background: Hospital at home (HaH) programs have shown efficacy as substitutes for high-cost, traditional hospitalization in patients who are primarily low-acuity and with a range of medical conditions, including community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and urinary tract infection (UTI). However, wide-spread adoption is minimal as providers and patients are challenged to consider HaH at the time of [...]

Background: Prior exposure to antibiotics is associated with a subsequent risk for sepsis (Baggs et al., 2018). However, there are limited data on characteristics of patients readmitted with sepsis following previous antibiotic exposure during a non-sepsis related hospitalization. We sought to characterize factors associated with sepsis-related readmission (SRR) within 30 days of a non-sepsis index [...]

Background: Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) creation is a commonly utilized procedure used for patients with chronic liver disease and resistant portal hypertension. Previous studies have explored the trends and short-term outcomes in TIPS procedures. This study aims to further compare short-term in-hospital outcomes of patients with chronic kidney disease when undergoing TIPS. Methods: This [...]

Background: Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) creation is a commonly utilized procedure used for patients with chronic liver disease and resistant portal hypertension. Previous studies have explored the trends and short-term outcomes in TIPS procedures. This study aims to further compare short-term in-hospital outcomes of patients with coagulation disorders when undergoing TIPS. Methods: This retrospective [...]