Background: Hospitalizations to treat SARS-CoV-2 infected patients have strained health systems worldwide. Monitored outpatient management of select low-risk COVID-19 patients with isolated exertional hypoxia could help preserve hospital resources and reduce costs while aiming to maintain a high standard of care. In this retrospective cohort analysis, we aimed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of […]

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 […]

Background: Intense inflammatory response and the releasing of cytokines are one of the known inflammatory responses in COVID19. Activation of inflammatory cascade increases the production of cytokines and chemokines such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, which can increase the risk of the perioperative complication rate.1,2,3 Therefore, we hypothesized that the intense inflammatory response due to COVID19 […]

Background: Introduction: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) expediently detects the pulmonary manifestations of COVID-19 and is predictive of patient outcomes. Although lung POCUS can be used in the diagnosis and management of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, there are no standardized scanning protocols. Furthermore, it is not known how much scanning is needed to sufficiently rule-in the pulmonary […]

Background: Dysphagia is prevalent in older adults with dementia, particularly in the acute care setting. The objective of this study was to use an innovative approach to extract a more representative sample of patients with dysphagia from the electronic health record (EHR) to determine patient characteristics and outcomes associated with dysphagia in hospitalized persons with […]

Background: Hospital admissions at a tertiary care hospital occurs mostly by two routes: 1) through the Emergency Department (ED), and 2) through Transfer center. Several perceptions exist about transfer patients being more complex, and association with worse outcomes, or similar outcomes as compared to ED admits, and hence need for optimization of transfer decision and […]

Background: Patients with diabetes who are hospitalized with COVID-19 have been found to have increased lengths of stay and greater intensive care unit utilization compared to those without diabetes. Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is an acute diabetes emergency that accounts for a high number of hospitalizations, hospital readmissions, and healthcare utilization. Our study aims to evaluate […]

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has required healthcare systems around the world to rapidly innovate and adapt to unprecedented operational and clinical strain. Anticipated limitations in healthcare resource allocation is coupled by the strife caused by the variable clinical course of COVID-19 and the isolation of families inevitable with an inpatient admission. Many healthcare systems have […]

Background: Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences are common practice among internal medicine (IM) residency programs, but their effect on education and patient safety (PS) is inconsistent.[1,2] Existing research reports have struggled to identify best practices for implementing M&M conferences due to inherent variability in personnel and adverse event analysis processes. We need interventions that account […]

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected certain racial and ethnic minority groups, many of whom may not speak english as a primary language. Patients with Limited English proficiency (LEP) have previously been shown to have worse outcomes in the hospital, including higher odds of mortality from sepsis. We investigated the association […]