Background: Inpatient margins and hospital reimbursement have become increasingly dependent upon improving key metrics, such as length of stay and 30-day readmissions. Hospitalists typically lack access to credible, timely, and insightful metrics that inform their practice. In addition, individualized metrics, when available, struggle to properly normalize for patient complexity, warranted variations in care, shared decision-making, [...]

Background: Inpatient margins and hospital reimbursement have become increasingly dependent upon improving key metrics, such as length of stay and 30-day readmissions. Hospitalists typically lack access to credible, timely, and insightful metrics that inform their practice. In addition, individualized metrics, when available, struggle to properly normalize for patient complexity, warranted variations in care, shared decision-making, [...]

Background: Initial management of acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) aims towards aggressive fluid resuscitation to maintain hemodynamic stability. Existing evidence regarding benefit of early endoscopy is unclear with some studies suggesting mortality benefits and some suggesting otherwise. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if there is any mortality benefit of doing early endoscopy [...]

Background: Readmissions continue to be a significant burden on health systems and in 2017 nearly 80% of all hospitals face financial penalties for 30-day readmissions. There are limited examples of standardized processes for notifying discharging physicians of readmissions real-time and encouraging physician self-reflection on reasons for readmissions. Purpose: In the present study, we created a [...]

Background: Preventing readmissions of patients with chronic illness can improve healthcare outcomes and decrease costs. Previously reported Medicare claims data from 2003 to 2004 showed that 19.6% of Medicare beneficiaries discharged from the hospital were readmitted within 30 days at a cost of $17.4 billion. Our 232-bed community hospital has set a goal to reduce [...]

Background: Recurrent hospitalizations are responsible for considerable health care costs. This retrospective observational study was undertaken to determine whether timely communication of care (COC), such as direct phone call or voicemail notice, following a hospitalization is effective at increasing clinic follow-up rates and reducing readmissions within 30 days after discharge. Methods: We analyzed 237 patients [...]