Background: Patient & Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) are groups of patients and caregivers who share their overall experiences of care and perspectives on specific topics with hospital leaders at regular meetings. PFACs provide a crucial supplemental layer of feedback to hospitals outside of HCAHPS survey data and post-discharge phone calls. Hospital Medicine specific PFACs are [...]

Background: Clinical decision making pathways (pathways) embedded within electronic medical record (EMR) systems are an innovative tool intended to assist providers in diagnosing and managing patient conditions. Pathways provide clinical decision trees with the ability access online risk score calculators and select orders for lab and imaging tests, medications, and consultations. Studies have shown that [...]

Background: Patient experience is an important outcome for hospitals. These outcomes impact insurer payments, hospital ratings, and perceived quality of care (1). Like many hospitals, our patient experience is measured using Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys administered by Press Ganey (PG). Response rates to PG surveys are low, especially from [...]

Background: CMS launched the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program in 2010 as part of their initiatives to incorporate healthcare quality into Medicare payment structures. Participating hospitals are assessed according to four domains: Clinical Care, Person and Community Engagement, Safety, and Efficiency and Cost Reduction. Interventions to improve patient safety such as hand hygiene, contact precautions, [...]

Background: Hospitalizations related to injection drug use (IDU) are often complicated by complex psychosocial circumstances and behavioral health needs. Despite growing hospitalizations amongst this patient population, little is known about physician experience caring for these patients. Our study aims to explore physician perspectives in caring for patients with IDU to understand the impact of these [...]

Background: Family centered rounds (FCR) was first defined by Sisterhen in 2007 as “interdisciplinary work rounds at the bedside in which patient and family share in the control of the management plan as well as in the evaluation of the process itself.”1 Since then, recognition of the benefits of FCR have led to widespread adoption. [...]

Background: Interprofessional rounds have the potential to improve patient safety, quality, and experience.  Although increasingly implemented, significant variation in rounding practice patterns exist and few data are available to evaluate impact on patients’ experiences. We implemented a novel inpatient collaborative care (CC) model, which includes interprofessional rounds, and also purposely integrates patients and families into [...]

Background: Despite the importance of sleep to recovery from acute illness and the patient experience, hospitalizations are far from restful. Currently, Medicare focuses on noise, but other disruptions to patient sleep such as lab draws, vitals and pain must also be considered. In order to improve in-hospital sleep via a patient-centered approach, it is important [...]

Background: Accountable Care Units (ACUs) with Structured Interdisciplinary Bedside Rounds (SIBR® rounds) have shown significant improvements in throughput, clinical outcomes, and satisfaction. Yet, prior studies have noted difficulties achieving such improvements or sustaining them. Interdisciplinary rounds are a predominantly physician-led teamwork process with efficacy vulnerable to inconsistent physician leadership and engagement. Our hospital had previously [...]

Background: With nearly 60 million cases and 1.4 million deaths globally (1), the COVID-19 pandemic has been deemed a traumatic event that transcends the range of normal human experience (2). History suggests those on the frontline of disasters are at risk of burnout, depression, post- traumatic stress disorder, and in grim cases—suicide. (3) The current [...]