Background: ED visits increased to 145.59 million in 2016 (CDC 2019), resulting in an increase in hospital admissions. Chen et al. showed a correlation between the overall ED census and likelihood of admission; while, Velasquez et al. found up to 28% of hospitalists reported having admitted patients when no admission criteria were met. They described […]

Background: Despite system-level focus on avoidance of potentially preventable hospitalizations, the decision to admit a patient with low medical acuity has been understudied. Our study sought to identify factors associated with admission versus discharge from the Emergency Department (ED) for patients considered unlikely to be medically appropriate for admission. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional […]

Background: Hospitalists have increasingly engaged in admission decision-making for acute care medical patients. The role, duties, and impact of a Hospital Medicine Triage Attending (“triagist”) are emerging yet ill-defined. To our knowledge, no study thus far has catalogued the activities of these physicians in a comprehensive way. Our objectives were to 1) characterize the demands […]

Case Presentation: A 65 year old male with no significant medical history presented to an outside facility complaining of fatigue, weakness, nausea and vomiting. He had moderate alcohol history and significant weight loss over the past 6 months. Initial lab workup was notable for elevated liver transaminases with a hepatocellular pattern, Maddrey score of 53.6 […]