Background: Acutely-ill and multimorbid patients are frequently exposed to unintended medication errors after admission and their impacts on patient safety are profound. Designated ward-pharmacists as team members of our Hospital Medicine Center reconcile medications of hospitalized patients by identifying discrepancies in patients’ current medications and the medication used in acute care in emergency departments or [...]

Background: Computed tomography (CT) can provide critical information for diagnosis and is a prevalent and easy-to-use imaging test, but overtesting becomes a big probleｍ. The previous report showed 30-40% of abdominal CT scans were medically unnecessary. Therefore, head CT is a research topic in overtesting, and clinical predictive scores have been developed to avoid overtesting [...]

Background: Imaging diagnostics such as CT and MRI are practically inaccessible to many of this developing nation’s 42 million citizens. Ultrasound, however, is more readily available but primarily limited to use in obstetrics. With proper training, the diagnostic utility of ultrasonography may be expanded to non-obstetric point-of-care examinations. In this study, we aimed to evaluate [...]

Background: In an effort to combat the national opioid crisis, our state legislation passed House Bill 451 effective July 1, 2019. It addresses medication overprescribing to decrease morbidity and mortality from opioid misuse, abuse, and overdose. The law has several requirements including discussion of non-opioid treatment alternatives, review of the Prescription Monitoring Drug Program (PDMP) [...]

Background: Patients feel “uncomfortable, vulnerable, and exposed” in their gowns while providers are distressed at seeing and caring for their fellow human beings clad in sub-human “threadbare,” “ugly” garments. The purpose of this study was to create a patient gown based on design suggestions by patients and providers (physicians and nurses) and to refine the [...]

Background: ED (Emergency Department) boarding refers to patients who remain in the ED after they have been admitted. ED boarding is associated with decreases in quality of care, patient safety, and satisfaction. UAB has a longstanding, substantial problem in regards to ED boarding.Discharging patients late in the day from inpatient units contributes to ED boarding [...]

Background: Patients admitted to the observation unit with chest pain have a high utilization of cardiac diagnostic testing (e.g. stress testing). Current practice does not incorporate the consistent use of a risk-stratification tool. HEART score is a validated tool that accurately identified low-risk chest pain patients in the Emergency Room in past studies. The object [...]

Background: Conversations around advance care planning (ACP) allow patients to direct the type and intensity of the medical care that they receive. Known ethnic and racial disparities in ACP exist, with racial and ethnic minorities less likely to have living wills and DNR orders. We aimed to understand the impact of an intervention to improve [...]

Background: Rest is critical to healing, yet a child’s sleep during an inpatient hospital admission is often disrupted. One such disruption is oral medication administration, which is commonly scheduled around the clock (q6h, q8h, q12h) by default, despite comparable efficacy during waking hours. Previous studies suggest that flexible medication times help inpatients sleep longer and [...]

Background: Inpatient addiction consultant services are an innovative and proliferating tool used to confront the opioid epidemic. As healthcare systems seek to address gaps in care for patients with substance use disorder (SUD), the inpatient setting is increasingly understood as a unique opportunity for counseling, referral for treatment, and initiation of medication assistance treatment (MAT) [...]