Background: With increasing subspecialization in the field of Internal Medicine, the role of the hospitalist has metamorphosed, and the expectation for certification in specialized procedures, such as paracentesis, has diminished. Many hospitalist groups have traditionally relied on procedure services to manage specialized procedures. As a result, the majority of hospitalist faculty, and to a greater [...]

Background: Over 1 million patients are hospitalized in the United States yearly for pneumonia, of which 40% develop parapneumonic effusion. Left untreated, these effusions can progress to complex effusions requiring more invasive treatment, including tube thoracostomy and surgical decortication, increasing hospital length of stay and overall morbidity. In patients with complex parapneumonic effusion, intrapleural lytic [...]

Background: One way academic organizations recognize staff achievements and scholarly activities is through four levels of academic appointments (AA): Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor.1 Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs) employed by the Mayo Clinic are highly encouraged to pursue AA.1 While NPPAs commonly participate in a wide range of academic activities, [...]

Background: Traditional Length of Stay (tLOS) is commonly used in Hospital Medicine to assess hospital resource utilization and to incentivize reductions in patient stays. However, tLOS is often attributed to the discharging physician, which can lead to attribution errors and fairness concerns. These limitations can reduce the metric’s utility. In response, Pierce, Harrison, and Patel [...]

Background: Patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) often face frequent emergency department (ED) visits and hospital readmissions, primarily driven by challenges in pain management, stigma, and system-level barriers. Existing interventions at the CU Division of Hospital Medicine, such as cohorting patients with specific teams, multidisciplinary care conferences, and implementing care plans for high-utilizer patients, have [...]

Background: Current guidelines to decrease the incident of CLABSI (Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infection) recommend daily assessment of line presence and clinical indication for the line (Odada et al., 2023). This helps decrease unnecessary line use and facilitates prompt line removal if not indicated. Daily line documentation including type of line, anatomical location of [...]

Background: Hospital discharge is a complex process for patients, caregivers, and providers. A robust understanding that the patient has regarding new diagnoses, medications, and appointments improves the capacity for self-care and post-discharge outcomes. The Team Discharge approach was successful at NYU Brooklyn Hospital and expanded to the Manhattan Campus Purpose: To improve the patient experience [...]

Background: Despite 80 years of documentation of the “evil sequellae”(1) of immobility for inpatients, lack of ambulation remains prevalent and deleterious. Hospitalized patients have been shown to spend an average of 83% of their stay in bed(2), leading to complications including loss of independence in activities of daily living, higher rates of discharge to facility, [...]

Background: A patient typically encounters countless new faces during their hospital stay, particularly at a teaching hospital. Often, patients may not know who they’ve interacted with, due to the overwhelming amount of new information. They might ask the wrong person about discharge, or recount an important conversation but not be able to identify who they [...]

Background: Safety-net hospitals are disproportionately affected by the national intensivist shortage. The Society of Critical Care Medicine estimates the U.S. needs over 48,000 intensivists, but fewer than half are available. This shortage is pronounced in rural and underserved urban areas, leaving hospitalists in resource-limited settings to manage critically ill patients with minimal or no intensivist [...]