Background: Racism is a public health crisis impacting patients and healthcare workers. Antiracist education is not typical in undergraduate or graduate medical education curriculum. Discriminatory practices in health care result in worse patient outcomes in Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC). Committing to antiracist work is the first step in addressing racism and must […]

Background: Patient portal use has been associated with improved patient experience, safety, and health outcomes.1,2 To keep patients better connected to their providers, our institution aimed to expand MyChart utilization. We piloted a standard operating procedure (SOP) to enhance MyChart education and uptake among those admitted to an inpatient general medicine unit. Purpose: Our intervention […]

Background: Residents are uniquely positioned to learn from and contribute to informatics. As key electronic health record (EHR) users, they offer practical solutions and feedback. Resident informatics engagement promotes EHR proficiency and accelerates implementation of best practices and quality improvement. Understanding how clinical data are structured creates a foundation for future scientific inquiry using clinical […]

Background: The HCAHPS survey is used nationally by health systems as a standard to measure the patient experience and identify opportunities for improvement. Historically, process improvement initiatives based on the survey are implemented retroactively, attempting to prevent negative experiences for future patients. However, given the increasing complexity of patient care, proactively addressing the identified concerns […]

Background: There has been ample speculation about potential future applications of natural language processing and related technologies for clinical documentation, and yet the mechanics of clinical documentation have changed very little since the passage of the HITECH Act in 2009. Purpose: While awaiting the integration of more advanced technologies into electronic health records (EHRs), we […]

Background: Despite the widespread use of technology across our daily lives, many processes in the hospital remain manual and labor-intensive. As hospital medicine divisions grow, there is an increasing need for automated and scalable solutions. While many hospitals look to external vendors to provide automated solutions, these often lack customizability and gaps remain. Purpose: To […]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed additional stress on the healthcare system. Not only do we face large volumes of high acuity patients, but also acute shortages of healthcare providers. Physician shortages were particularly pressing to our institution. COVID-19 patients were cohorted to our Hospital Medicine (MHS) service to minimize exposure and risks to house […]

Background: Clinical documentation is challenging when patients are admitted with many diagnoses of varying severity. Documentation of chronic or low-acuity conditions on the History and Physical (H&P) note can feel less salient than primary admission diagnoses. This can lead to under-documentation of comorbid conditions and an underrepresentation of the complexity of care. Capturing this overlooked […]

Background: Internist trainees have traditionally acquired radiology skills in a piecemeal manner, either through elective rotations or through informal “radiology rounds” on inpatient medicine rotations. here is no comprehensive curriculum for teaching basic radiology to internal medicine (IM) residents, and their image interpretation skills are limited (1). Additionally, the rise of the electronic medical record […]

Background: The advent of internal medicine procedure services within academic medical centers has had a profoundly positive impact on patient care, patient safety, and resident training (1-4). In general, these teams focus on performing invasive bedside procedures, including paracenteses, lumbar punctures, central venous catheter placements, thoracenteses, and ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous catheter placements. Recently, the procedure service at […]