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: 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: The availability of beds within healthcare systems has been stressed during each wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare systems with tertiary hospitals have had increasing patient volumes and face limitations of specialized urgent (e.g., ECMO) and routine (e.g., Percutaneous Coronary Intervention) functions during critical inpatient surge volumes. Reserving the limited capacity at a tertiary [...]

Background: Frequently hospitalized patients face unique challenges in navigating health care systems. Although practice-, hospital-, and accountable care organization-level programs to address the needs of these patients exist, interventions have had mixed results, with only some demonstrating reduction in hospitalizations or costs. To best serve frequently hospitalized patients and improve future interventions, clinicians, leaders, and [...]

Background: Obesity increases the risk of severe illness, hospitalizations, and death from most acute illnesses – particularly infectious diseases. (1,2) African American communities have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and are disproportionately impacted by the obesity epidemic in this country. (3, 4) However, little is known of their knowledge and attitudes related to [...]

Background: Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) experience inferior health outcomes. The end-of-life period represents a particularly vulnerable time for LEP patients who may not receive optimal symptom management due to language barriers and other factors. There is limited data on disparities in provider practices around opioid administration based on patient LEP status, particularly at [...]

Background: For the academic hospitalist, rounds are the cornerstone of teaching, learning, and patient care. At our institution, a study found that internal medicine residents on the inpatient wards spent an average of 3.4 hours rounding daily. However, most residents and attendings described rounds as “inefficient” and “low value.” With the importance of ACGME work [...]

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a staggering 200 million cases with over 4 million deaths globally as of August 2021. COVID-19 is associated with lung inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are used to improve lung function by reducing inflammation, edema, mucus secretion, and inhibiting various cytokine activities. However, there is [...]

Background: Esophageal varices with bleeding (EVB) are one of the most common causes of deaths in cirrhotic patients in the United States. Over the course of years, studies have reported an increase in the incidence of EVB and is associated with a high risk for morbidity and mortality. Data is lacking with regards to recent [...]