Background: The Healthcare Improvement and iNnovation in Quality (THINQ) Collaborative, launched by UCLA Health’s Department of Medicine (DoM) Quality Program in 2014, aims to fill gaps in quality improvement (QI) education at the undergraduate level. As QI and patient safety (PS) have become core aspects of health professions education, interdisciplinary, team-based care models are increasingly [...]

Background: Hospital at Home (HaH) is an expanding clinical model that delivers inpatient-level care to patients in their homes, substituting a traditional hospital stay. It is becoming a standard of care at many institutions, yet there are still few formally established processes for integrating medical trainees despite clear benefits for both the program’s growth and [...]

Background: A process problem with our MDR process was identified which had exhausted conventional unit-based approaches to improvement. We researched new processes and brainstormed on an “outside the box” approach to the Case Management model and MDR Daily Meetings. The new approach involved a dramatic Hospital-wide change of structure, associated with integration of multiple service [...]

Background: Hospital-at-Home (HaH) is a novel care model providing inpatient care for patients in their home through a combination of home visits and virtual care. Advanced Care at Home (ACH), UNC Health’s HaH program, launched in 2021, has helped over 2,000 admissions to date. The majority of HaH care is provided under the terms of [...]

Background: The STAT priority in imaging is universally understood as a signal for medical emergencies; however, its misuse is widespread. At our institution, prior to intervention, 45% of all imaging exams were ordered STAT, with many of these orders not indicating medical emergencies. Our previous initiative in 2023 aimed to redefine imaging priority categories, reserving [...]

Background: Medicine procedure services (MPSs) have been shown to increase procedure volume, procedure completion rate, adherence to best practice safety measures, resident involvement, and resident satisfaction, and decrease length of stay within Internal Medicine (IM) [Ref 1-4]. However, the frequency with which MPSs rely on other services, particularly Interventional Radiology (IR), for assistance to complete [...]

Background: The health care transition (HCT) from adolescence to young adulthood is a vulnerable time for youth with special health care needs (YSHCN). Inadequate preparation and support from clinicians, increased responsibilities, and lack of ongoing parental assistance may lead to worsening health conditions. It is generally understood that YSHCN should undergo a structured pediatric to [...]

Background: A challenge facing many hospital medicine programs is matching provider staffing to daily patient volumes. Staffing models and clinical work schedules are typically built weeks or months in advance, with limited ability to flex up or down in real time based on actual patient volumes. Patient volumes can vary significantly on a daily or [...]

Background: Diagnostic error is a major threat to the safety of hospitalized patients, affecting as many as 1 in 4 patients and leading to 7% of inpatient deaths. However, diagnostic error remains difficult to identify and measure, particularly in the hospital setting, where determination of an error relies on medical record review. Measurement difficulty also [...]

Background: Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States yet physicians report minimal education on how to disclose errors and adverse events. To Err is Human shed light on the severity of errors. As a result, communication and resolution programs were developed over the past two decades to attempt to [...]