Background: In the throughput arena, one of the most challenging groups of hospitalized patients is the long length of stay (LLOS) patients. Although representing a minority of inpatients, this LLOS population contributes to the majority of excess days. At our urban tertiary academic institution, a LLOS is defined as greater than 15 excess days. In [...]

Background: Sitting at the bedside improves patients’ perception of their interactions with their physicians. Despite these data, prior work shows that medicine interns sit during only 9% of observed physician-patient interactions. We aimed to assess perceived importance of and barriers to sitting at the bedside among a group of internal medicine residents. These results have [...]

Background: Academic medical centers with teaching and non-teaching teams and complex call schedules frequently utilize triage providers to allocate admissions to each inpatient service. In this process, the ED provider hands off the patient to a triage provider, who then hands off the patient to the admitting provider. This sequential handoff can lead to decay [...]

Background: Understanding communication between providers and patients is key to providing patient-centered care. We sought to determine if patient’s perception of time spent by physician at bedside is associated with patient satisfaction with physician communication. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of patients admitted to the hospital medicine service. The survey included questions about patient’s [...]

Background: Studies regarding patient comprehension have mainly focused on discharge instructions and information, and few studies are available on patients’ comprehension of their treatment while hospitalized. The standards for patient-centered communication by The Joint Commission and the New York State Patients’ Bill of Rights, state that patients should be informed participants in their own health [...]

Background: Physicians and nurses often overestimate patients’ understanding of their illness, medications, treatments, and care plans. Fragmented discussions can lead to inconsistent conveyance of key information to patients and their caregivers. Multidisciplinary bedside rounds are an essential opportunity to facilitate patient-centered care. Our medical-surgical units did not have a standardized approach to ensuring consistent, clear [...]

Background: Physician handoffs between inpatient shifts influence safety and care quality. Handoffs are also at risk for communication failures. Poor care coordination and miscommunication cause 80% of sentinel events nationwide. The rise of the electronic medical record (EMR) presented an opportunity to standardize communication during handoffs. Unfortunately, this potential has thus far gone largely unrealized, [...]

Background: During hospitalization, many patients cannot identify the physician responsible for their care. Among patients cared for by a hospitalist, many of them are meeting their hospitalist for the first time. Previous work has shown that patients can meet up to 7 physicians and 18 other health professionals during a hospital stay. The large number [...]

Background: Poor communication among providers is a barrier to seamless transitions in patient care. This problem is compounded when patients undergo interhospital transfer (IHT), where complex patients are transferred between providers, settings and healthcare systems. Templated notes have been used in other hospital-based care transitions to improve communication but have not been widely utilized during [...]

Background: Developing effective tools which enhance patient-physician communication is crucial to improving the patient experience. Existing research has shown that there are several components which are central to effective communication, including creating a good interpersonal relationship, facilitating exchange of information, and including patients in decision making. Based on our experience at an underserved community hospital [...]