Background: Pneumonia is often treated for longer than necessary, yet factors associated with excess duration of treatment are unknown. We sought to: (a) develop an algorithm to determine appropriate antibiotic duration in non-intensive care unit (ICU) patients hospitalized with pneumonia and (b) apply this algorithm to an ongoing prospective study to determine patient-, provider-, and [...]

Background: Hospital-acquired C. difficile colitis is associated with increased length of stay (LOS) and significant morbidity and mortality. During hospitalization, patients visit many procedural, diagnostic, and treatment areas throughout the hospital, presenting opportunities for spore contamination of surfaces and nosocomial disease transmission. We developed a novel methodology using electronic health record (EHR) data to map [...]

Background: Structured mortality review can help identify care issues and focus quality efforts, but existing methods have limitations. In the Department of Medicine at UCLA, we developed a novel in-person, near real-time, interdisciplinary rapid mortality review (RMR) process to capture the insight of frontline providers and improve care. In this study, we compare the yield [...]

Background: Pneumonia is often treated for longer than necessary, yet factors associated with excess duration of treatment are unknown. We sought to: (a) develop an algorithm to determine appropriate antibiotic duration in non-intensive care unit (ICU) patients hospitalized with pneumonia and (b) apply this algorithm to an ongoing prospective study to determine patient-, provider-, and [...]

Background: Hospital-acquired C. difficile colitis is associated with increased length of stay (LOS) and significant morbidity and mortality. During hospitalization, patients visit many procedural, diagnostic, and treatment areas throughout the hospital, presenting opportunities for spore contamination of surfaces and nosocomial disease transmission. We developed a novel methodology using electronic health record (EHR) data to map [...]

Background: Structured mortality review can help identify care issues and focus quality efforts, but existing methods have limitations. In the Department of Medicine at UCLA, we developed a novel in-person, near real-time, interdisciplinary rapid mortality review (RMR) process to capture the insight of frontline providers and improve care. In this study, we compare the yield [...]

Background: Systems-based practice (SBP) is critical to physicians’ work and is gaining emphasis in medical school curricula. Purpose: In this hospitalist-led pilot curriculum for first-year medical students, we developed a novel didactic and experiential approach to teaching SBP skills, seeking to help students apply newly-acquired SBP concepts to inpatient improvement projects to add value to the clinical environment. Description: For the 12 [...]

Background: Despite the increase in female medical students and clinicians, gender disparities continue to exist for female clinicians today, from limits on upward mobility and leadership positions to unequal pay and more. Within medical education, existing research shows male students outperform female students on the USMLE Step 1 licensing examination, which has longer-term ramifications on [...]

Background: Delirium is associated with increased duration of mechanical ventilation, longer intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, increased mortality and cognitive impairment after discharge. Quetiapine has been associated with faster resolution but long-term use is associated with adverse effects. Patients are often discharged from the ICU and subsequently from the hospital on quetiapine without [...]