Background: Assessing severity of illness using available electronic medical record (EMR) data on admission and predicting inpatient mortality is very challenging. Lacking standardized practices around end of life issues, hospitalists use their clinical judgment in making these crucial decisions. Prolonged discussions may be needed in medically complex patients to direct an optimal plan of care […]

Background: There is a significant impact of influenza on the individuals, families, and societies, both economically and clinically, in terms of hospital admissions, medication expenses and side effects, secondary bacterial infections and more days off from work or other forms of reduced productivity for the patients or their caretakers. Our objective is to present the […]

Background: Persons with opioid use disorders (OUD) represent a disproportionately high percentage of hospitalized patients, have greater lengths of stay and readmissions, can incur higher costs, and are at greater risk of drug-related death immediately post-discharge. Further, despite the availability of effective medications for OUD, patients often are not offered treatment during the inpatient encounter. […]

Background: Mitochondrial disease (MD) refers to a group of clinically heterogeneous disorders that result from dysfunctional oxidative phosphorylation and subsequent cellular incapability to meet energy demands. Mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS), myoclonus, epilepsy, ataxia with ragged red fibers (MERRFs), chronic progressive ophthalmoplegia, Kearns–Sayre syndrome, and sensory ataxia neuropathy dysarthria ophthalmoplegia are among […]

Background: Postmyocardial Infarction Syndrome (PMIS), also called Dressler syndrome or Post-pericardiotomy Syndrome, refers to a heterogeneous group of autoimmune-mediated conditions of pericardial, epicardial and myocardial inflammation following myocardial infarction. Generally considered to be rare in the reperfusion era, the features and risk factors of PMIS are less well characterized in the contemporary era. This study […]

Background: The 2016 Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines recommend antibiotic administration within 1 hour of emergency department (ED) presentation for patients with sepsis. While early antibiotics are associated with reduced mortality, the 1 hr policy has been criticized for its one-size-fits-all approach and risk for over-diagnosis and treatment. Clinicians and quality leaders have called, instead, for […]

Background: Increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) has been noted among cancer patients as compared to non-cancer. Cancer associated thrombosis caused three folds increased hospitalizations, increased inpatient/outpatient medical and prescription claims, and increased total health care costs per patient. Our objective was to study demographic, clinical and laboratory risk factors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) among […]

Background: The obesity paradox describes a counterintuitive observation of improved outcomes in patients with obesity. Analysis of the association among overweight/obesity and leading causes of inpatient mortality in a systemic manner has not been conducted. Methods: We used STATA (StataCorp, College Station, Texas) to analyze the 2016 National Inpatient Sample (NIS). We recognized patients with […]

Background: Fall for hospitalized patients can cause significant injury and have devastating long term consequences for patients with 33% resulting in injury, 4-6% causing serious injury (1). Information is available regarding risk factors for falls and specific patient or nursing centric interventions to prevent falls, but there is little known about the physician perspective in […]

Background: At our institution, no current standard exists for teaching rounds’ structure or content, which is largely at the discretion of the attending physician. The purpose of this study was to illustrate the “anatomy” of inpatient rounds as a needs assessment for future process improvement efforts. Methods: We performed a descriptive cross-sectional study of general […]