Background: Hospital Medicine is being increasingly involved in improving various metrices of inpatient care such as length of stay and cost of care. Patients who do not meet ‘inpatient criteria’ often contribute to significant financial costs to hospitals and remain in ‘observation status’ during their hospital stay. Observations units which were introduced by emergency doctors […]

Background: Care fragmentation is associated with a number of clinical and socio-demographic features which have been thought to increase hospital utilization as well as morbidity and mortality. Patients who receive fragmented care at the hospital level are often underinsured and uninsured. It is unclear to what degree lack of insurance and subsequently lack of continuous […]