Background: Multiple recent studies have demonstrated a link between effective clinician communication and patient experience of care in the hospital. Additionally, at a time of unprecedented rates of clinician burnout, communication challenges can negatively impact hospitalist job satisfaction. Despite this, there are limited proven interventions for improving communication in hospital medicine. A low-cost, high-yield, and [...]

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: 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: Family centered rounds (FCR) was first defined by Sisterhen in 2007 as “interdisciplinary work rounds at the bedside in which patient and family share in the control of the management plan as well as in the evaluation of the process itself.”1 Since then, recognition of the benefits of FCR have led to widespread adoption. [...]

Background: Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an integral part of the physical examination and a valuable diagnostic tool. POCUS is unique among medical technologies in that it requires physical co-location of the provider and patient. Previous studies have shown the value of shared decision-making between patients and providers requiring a mutual understanding of [...]

Background: Deployment of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) consumes significant enterprise-wide resources. Hospitals may be reluctant to introduce further changes during the same year, including patient experience improvement initiatives. Deployment efforts may stretch clinical leaders who provide oversight on patient experience efforts. Lastly, EMR is noted to be a major source of provider burnout and deployment [...]

Background: Patients, particularly the elderly and those who have chronic illnesses, often experience adverse events when transitioning from the hospital to home. An estimated 20% of all discharged patients suffer a preventable adverse event (e.g., reaction to medication) within three weeks of discharge and 20% of Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 [...]

Background: High quality discharges improve patients’ health outcomes and experience and are a vital component of resident education. Our internal medicine residency program has had challenges in sustaining our efforts to improve discharge planning and in providing resident feedback on the process. Furthermore, despite access to “big data”, many residency programs struggle to find meaningful [...]

Background: It is challenging for patients to navigate through complex healthcare systems after-hours. This leads to delays in patient care, patient/provider dissatisfaction, inappropriate resource utilization, readmissions, and higher healthcare costs. Prior to August 2015, non-medical staff at external call centers with invalidated standard work, poor work cell co-location, and inadequate active daily management addressed the [...]

Background: Discharge from the hospital can be overwhelming for patients. Prior to May 2016, discharge phone calls were made by inpatient bedside nurses who seldom had the resources or time to resolve patient’s unmet needs. Patients/families were often referred to the outpatient clinics for assistance. Purpose: To provide seamless connectivity to patients after discharge from [...]