Background: Translating academic effort into scholarship and portfolios for institutional awards and promotion is time intensive and can be challenging to incorporate into the daily work of academic hospitalists. Writing accountability groups offer an opportunity to increase scholarly productivity and receive peer support. Purpose: The goal of the VA Hospitalist Writing Accountability Group is to [...]

Background: Published work applying game theory to physician-patient interactions is nearly non-existent [1-4]. The most prominent work is the example of an emergency medicine physician being asked to prescribe opiates for a patient they suspect of opiate use disorder (OUD) seeking opiates for secondary gain (McAdams 2014). McAdams’ game theory analysis suggested that institutional pressure [...]

Background: It is universal practice to restrain incarcerated patients – regardless of age, illness, mobility, or pretrial status – with metal shackles during hospital stays without consideration for less restrictive alternatives. Globally, human rights and legal groups have voiced opposition to this shackling, citing numerous justice, ethics, and medical concerns relating to the practice. Healthcare [...]

Background: 83.3% of Hospital Medicine (HM) groups employ Advanced Practice Providers (APPs).1 However, per a study in Journal of Hospital Medicine APPs are less frequently involved (< 50%) in teaching, research, QI and leadership training suggesting underutilization of APPs in these realms.2 Furthermore, according to 2021 NCCPA data 40.2% of PAs identified professional burnout influenced [...]

Background: Co-managed care models have become increasingly popular as a result of their positive impact on patient care. This has been seen through improvement in quality metrics such as readmission, LOS, and adherence to evidence-based care pathways. Surgical hospitalist models have paved the way for new collaborative models that standardize care and optimize inter-specialty communication. [...]

Background: America is facing an opioid epidemic. From 1997 to 2017 there were 702,000 deaths from drug overdoses of which greater than 50% were from opioids. The opioid epidemic knows no boundaries, it affects men and women of all age groups and socioeconomic status. Hospitalists are now seeing more opioid related hospital admissions which have [...]

Background: In 2019, for the first time, greater than 50% of medical school graduates in the United States are female. With changing demographics of physicians, establishing and advertising appropriate support for providers throughout pregnancy and lactation is critical. Pregnancy and lactation support has been directly linked to recruiting women early in their careers as well [...]

Background: A working group was created to look at the care of behavioral patients in the hospital. This group focused primarily on the rapid response teams (RRTs) related to behavioral emergencies in this patient population. Currently if a patient decompensates psychiatrically, rather than their psychiatric issue be addressed promptly, an RRT gets called and many [...]

Background: In the emergency department (ED), patients living in unsafe conditions in the community, who do not have a clinical reason to be admitted, present the physician with a dilemma: admit the patient to the hospital, exposing the patient to the hazards of hospitalization, or have them return to the hazards of their living situation. [...]

Background: Accurate and reliable medication reconciliation (MedRec) is an indispensable step ensuring patient safety and minimizing medical errors during transitions of care. Yet, it is one of the most challenging aspects in healthcare quality and safety. In fact, inaccurate MedRec accounts for 40 % of medication errors, up to 20% of which result in harm [...]