Background: High volume communications to physicians for non-emergent issues can disrupt workflows and cause delays and inefficiencies. The frustration caused by unnecessary communication can also affect the job satisfaction of the Care Team. Physicians at Mercy North Iowa received an average of 140 pages for call back on medical cases every day from January 2015 [...]

Background: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recommends against the use of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) for determining patient satisfaction with physicians, however, hospital administrators often use HCAHPS scores as one metric for determining physician incentives. Such use of HCAHPS likely results from its easy availability and lack of [...]

Background: For several years, patient evaluations of their physician has been utilized as a metric to evaluate physician performance and now it has been included as a parameter utilized to calculate reimbursement. Despite the routine use of these evaluations by most hospitals and agencies, little research has been done to evaluate the accuracy and characteristics [...]

Background: For several years, patient evaluations of their physician has been utilized as a metric to evaluate physician performance and now it has been included as a parameter utilized to calculate reimbursement. Despite the routine use of these evaluations by most hospitals and agencies, little research has been done to evaluate the metrics of patient [...]

Background: Our institution is a Level 1 regional trauma center with a large inpatient volume. A large percentage of these patients are elderly, with the traumatic events occurring as sequelae of their age, debility or medical complications. Last year, we developed a Trauma/Acute Care Surgery Hospitalist Co-Management program, due to, in large part, the increasing [...]

Background: Attending evaluations by medical students have many implications including promotion, teaching opportunities, job satisfaction and reputation both for individuals and for groups. In addition to teaching on traditional ward teams with housestaff and students, hospitalists are more commonly teaching in an apprenticeship model, where an attending, often carrying a full census, directly supervises and [...]

Background: In most hospitals, physicians provide care to patients across multiple units while nurses are often unit-based, resulting in team dispersion, and potentially impairing teamwork. Geographically localized care teams may demonstrate improved communication between team members and with patients, potentially enhancing coordination of care. However, the impact of geographically localized teams on patient experience scores [...]

Background: Hospitalized patients placed on contact, droplet, or respiratory isolation due to a carrier state or infection with resistant or highly communicable organisms report higher rates of anxiety and loneliness and have fewer physician encounters, room entries, vital sign records, physician and nursing notes in the chart. For these reasons, it has been hypothesized that [...]

Background: The hospital discharge is one of the most important aspects of a patient’s hospitalization, yet in residency training, this process often goes overlooked. Most residents are never properly taught how to effectively discharge a hospitalized patient. As a sequelae, patients often lack understanding about their hospitalization, treatment(s), and follow up plans. This uncertainty can [...]

Background: Since the advent of Electronic Health Record(EHR) and subsequent workload of clinical documentation, Hospital Medicine physicians are finding themselves spending more time in front of the computer and less with their patients. The implementation of EHR was intended to help physicians improve productivity and quality, however, data shows we are spending up to 25% [...]