Background: Healthcare provider burnout includes emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished sense of personal accomplishment. No recent study assesses burnout among academic hospital medicine (HM) physicians. A 2011 study of hospitalists at 20 academic medical centers noted burnout near 25%. Few studies assess burnout among Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) which include Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners, [...]

Background: Medical short stay units (SSU) are increasing in prevalence and frequently care for patients with infections. Antibiotic misuse at discharge from acute hospitalization is common. SSUs, which have rapid patient turnover, could have increased risk for antibiotic misuse during care transitions. Thus, we aimed to characterize antibiotic misuse at discharge from SSUs. Methods: We [...]

Background: Thirty-day readmission rates are increasingly used among hospitals as a quality of care indicator since research has shown that higher than expected readmission rates often lead to poor patient outcomes and high financial costs. Causes of readmission tend to be multifactorial and possibly variable dependent on systems. To investigate predictors of 30-day readmission rates, [...]

Background: The first reports of COVID-19 came from Wuhan, China, associated with high rates of mortality and end organ damage1. As the virus rapidly spread across the globe, many large tertiary centers found a strong association between COVID-19 and venous thrombus events. One of the first studies in Italy analyzed blood samples from COVID-19 patients [...]

Background: What happens when “best practice” is not practiced? Prescribing naloxone to patients at high risk of opioid overdose is considered best practice by the United States Department of Health in order to decrease the risk of overdose and maximize patient safety. Research also shows that patients who receive naloxone may successfully use it on [...]

Background: Patients with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) are a nationwide concern. They have significant morbidity, mortality & for several reasons, such as comorbid psychiatric conditions, medication noncompliance, low income or poor access to healthcare services, have an increased risk of hospital readmissions. Processes aimed at reducing readmission rates in this population are important for improving [...]

Background: Timely discharge of medically-ready patients from acute care hospitalization can reduce strain on hospital resources and limit patient exposure to iatrogenic harm [1-2]. The smooth transition of these patients to post-acute care has been critical during the COVID-19 pandemic to increase acute care bed availability and reduce the potential of hospital-based viral transmission [3]. [...]

Background: The ordering of unnecessary daily labs affects the safety of patients through hospital-acquired anemia, patient discomfort, and unnecessary downstream testing. This results in both additional financial and labor costs burdening the health system. As such, establishing effective interventions is warranted with necessary analysis of site-specific lab-ordering culture. We seek to perform this analysis to [...]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has required healthcare systems to meet new demands for rapid information dissemination, resource allocation, and patient tracking and reporting. To help address these unique challenges, the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) has leveraged Integrated Clinical Pathways (ICPs), which are flexible decision support tools integrated directly into the electronic health record. [...]

Background: Hospital discharges represent an important transition of care between the inpatient and outpatient setting. Discharge summary documentation enables providers to convey clinical reasoning and important updates in patient care; however, reviews of these documents suggest error rates as high as 36.4% (1.42 errors per document) (McMillen, et. al. 2006). Formalized resident discharge summary curricula [...]