Background: Geographic information science and technology (GIST) is an academic field that explains the importance of geospatial data and analysis. GIST is a powerful tool that has been successfully implemented to help address a number of significant health issues ranging from disease management to improved services. In this study, we have used GIST to help [...]

Background: There is a rising demand for hospitalist involvement in quality improvement (QI). Hospitalists now assume larger patient volumes and have become natural leaders in daily patient care, interdisciplinary rounding and patient safety. Despite a seemingly direct fit into QI, the majority of hospitalists have received minimal QI training in medical school, residency or beyond. [...]

Background: On inpatient general medicine units, the timing of routine lab draws is not evidence-based, and common practice is for routine labs to be collected in the early morning. However, this collection time may not be optimal for patient satisfaction, nursing and physician workflow, and the overall efficiency of care. It is known that early [...]

Background: The role of the hospitalists was originally to improve efficiency in medicine; however, in order to reach maximum efficiency, a quality dynamic must be achieved. Hospitalists face a particular challenge with increased workload and patient volume partnered with decreased treatment time. Purpose: There is no “gold standard” method of rounding for hospitalists. This study [...]

Background: Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys allow patients to reflect on their hospital stay and provide standardized metrics for hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide. hospital administrators have a vested interest in earning strong HCAHPS scores, as this information is publicly available. One theorized way to improve [...]

Background: BACKGROUNDSepsis has been recognized as a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. If not recognized and managed promptly, it can lead to septic shock which is one of the leading causes of deaths in the hospital (WHO, 2020). To promote early identification and treatment of severe sepsis and septic shock, [...]

Background: The evolving COVID-19 pandemic has raised direct patient care clinical questions that require rapid answers and flexibility in data generation and analysis. Thorough and reliable patient-level data is not available at the local, state, national, or international levels. Institutional efforts to produce datasets derived from electronic health records (EHR) can take months to years [...]

Background: Acute severe hypertension without evidence of end-organ damage (previously defined as hypertensive urgency) is a relatively common occurrence in the inpatient setting that can be frustrating and worrisome to both physicians and floor staff alike. Hypertensive urgencies have not been shown to be associated with increased short-term cardiovascular risk or mortality(1). Chronic hypertension is [...]

Background: Heart Failure (HF) is an important health care issue given its high prevalence, mortality, and cost of care. By 2030, greater than 8 million Americans will be living with HF. The projected cost will increase to close to 70 billion with the majority of the cost attributed to hospitalization. Despite numerous evidence-based strategies in [...]

Background: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic relapsing disease that has become an epidemic in the United States. Overdoses of prescription and illicit opioids have killed almost 450,000 Americans between 1999-2018 (1). Guidelines on OUD management recommend, in combination with behavioral therapy, opioid agonist therapy as the first-line treatment option with antagonist therapy as an alternative option. OUD-related inpatient admissions represent [...]