Background: The transition out of the hospital is a vulnerable time for patients and families and is ripe for physician training.  We implemented a discharge curriculum focusing on the competence of a ‘Safe and Effective Discharge (SAFE-D) From the Hospital’.  The primary objective for the SAFE-D innovation was to assess the usefulness of direct observation […]

Background: The discharge process is complex and high-risk. Clear and accurate communication between the physician or Advanced Practice Provider (providers), nurse, and patient are essential to ensure a safe and effective transition of care. Upon literature review, there have not been studies looking at interprofessional communication during the discharge process. Also, our institution (a large […]

Background: Recruiting hospitalists is expensive, and turnover remains a challenge. Monitoring morale may help leaders maintain it within their groups, thereby improving retention. No published scale measures hospitalist morale, and based on our prior work, we know that morale is a multifaceted construct. Our study describes 2011 and 2012 results from the Hospitalist Morale Assessment […]

Background: With the advancement of technology and the provision of critical care, more critically ill patients are surviving the medical intensive care unit (ICU). Upon transfer to the general wards patients continue to face complex and ongoing medical issues that increase their risk of morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to determine patient characteristics as […]

Background: After discharge from an acute care hospitalization, cancer patients may choose to pursue rehabilitative care in a skilled nursing facility (SNF). Our objective was to examine receipt of anti-cancer therapy, death, readmission, and hospice use of cancer patients who discharge to a SNF compared to those who discharge home or home with home health […]

Background: At this 328‐bed hospital there were 8 hospitalists rounding on up to 9 units per day. This prevented efficient and effective communication with nurses, patients, and families. Physicians spent more than 30 minutes of travel time per day. Length of stay and census per physician were high; patient satisfaction was low. With a deadline […]

Background: With the advancement of technology and medical care, more critically ill patients are surviving the medical intensive care unit (ICU) and are transferred to the general wards, where they spend the majority of their hospitalization. While there are guidelines that address common complications in the ICU (delirium and functional decline), once patients are transferred […]

Background: Many policy initiatives, such as Medicare's Value‐Based Purchasing program and the promotion of accountable care organizations, explicitly seek to realign hospitals' financial incentives from a focus on production to one on value (quality divided by cost). Although many hospitals and physicians are beginning to implement initiatives targeting this new goal, few of them have […]

Case Presentation: A 24‐year‐old white man presented to our hospital with ulcerative skin lesions and scleritis. He had a history of relapsing polychondritis (RP) that was diagnosed 3 years back and was well controlled for last 1 year with azathioprine 175 mg daily and prednisone 2.5 mg daily. A month prior to his current admission […]

Background: Our 165-bed community hospital is in a phase of rapid growth due to demographic changes and expansion of services offered within the hospital. While offering unprecedented level of healthcare access to the community, improvement with emergency department (ED) throughput has emerged as one of our challenges from a patient safety perspective. Unnecessarily prolonged ED […]