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: Approximately 1.6 million patients are transferred between hospitals yearly, with disproportionately high cost and mortality. Despite the risk associated with inter-hospital transition of care, there is no established best practice in coordinating and triaging transfers. This gap in knowledge is partly driven by a dearth of studies which integrate clinical data before and after [...]

Background: Since the “birth” of hospitalist in mid-nineties, it took 20 years to grow from zero to 50,000 physicians in 2016. In the U.S, internal medicine (IM) services are covered by different models, including teaching IM services and non-teaching services. Non-teaching services are attended by hospitalists or outpatient-practicing internists. Methods: We conducted a classical prospective [...]

Background: In 2016, around 94% of healthcare facility managers used locum tenens physicians in the previous 12 months. One-quarter of them were locum hospitalists, making hospitalists as the second most common service in demand for locum physicians. There are no prospective studies comparing the care of locum to non-locum hospitalists. Methods: We conducted a classical [...]

Background: Hospital at home (HaH) programs have shown efficacy as substitutes for high-cost, traditional hospitalization in patients who are primarily low-acuity and with a range of medical conditions, including community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and urinary tract infection (UTI). However, wide-spread adoption is minimal as providers and patients are challenged to consider HaH at the time of [...]

Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is one of the most common causes of hospitalization in the United States. Intravenous hydration with normal saline (NS) is the most commonly used fluid for resuscitation. Recent studies have shown better outcomes with the use of more pH balanced fluid-like ringer’s lactate and Plasmalyte (PL). We conducted a retrospective cohort [...]

Background: ST elevation MI is an acute event that mandates immediate intervention. Often, resources play a major role to enable prompt intervention. Our study aims to elaborate any differences that may exist between weekend and weekday outcomes at a national level. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (HCUP-NIS) database. Patients [...]

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of renal cell carcinoma or its treatment. It is unclear whether AKI, compared to inpatients with similar clinical and hospital-level characteristics without AKI, is associated with worse clinical outcomes and higher costs. To address this void, our study aimed to evaluate how an AKI diagnosis affects [...]

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: 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 [...]