Background: Like all large academic medical centers (AMCs), we face capacity challenges. On most days, bed occupancy is often greater than 90% and long boarding times in the Emergency Department (ED) leads to poor patient experience, care delays and risk for adverse outcomes. While many AMCs have approached this problem by acquiring new facilities or [...]

Background: Recent widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has dramatically increased the amount of information quickly accessible to clinicians. Given recent pushes for interoperability and consumer generated data in EHRs, the volume of information will continue to grow. The result is clinicians who experience information overload and lack the time and ability to comprehensively [...]

Background: Preventive care is a crucial but underutilized component of optimal population health management. Of eligible patients, 69.0% have received pneumococcal vaccine, 24.1% zoster vaccine, and 30.0% hepatitis B vaccine. Cancer screening rates are similarly low, with 12.5% screened for lung cancer and 71.6% for colorectal cancer. Gaps in preventive care are even larger in [...]

Background: Midlines are peripheral vascular devices inserted in the veins of the upper extremity with the tip located at or below the axillary vein. Greater appreciation of complications associated with peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) and the diffusion of catheter appropriateness criteria has led to expanded use of these devices. However, single center studies comparing [...]

Background: Like all large academic medical centers (AMCs), we face capacity challenges. On most days, bed occupancy is often greater than 90% and long boarding times in the Emergency Department (ED) leads to poor patient experience, care delays and risk for adverse outcomes. While many AMCs have approached this problem by acquiring new facilities or [...]

Background: Recent widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has dramatically increased the amount of information quickly accessible to clinicians. Given recent pushes for interoperability and consumer generated data in EHRs, the volume of information will continue to grow. The result is clinicians who experience information overload and lack the time and ability to comprehensively [...]

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: Ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) are a set of diagnoses that if not recognized and addressed properly in the ambulatory setting can lead to preventable hospitalizations. People experiencing homelessness (PEH) often have barriers to access of ambulatory care services and chronic disease self-management. These place them at high risk for having ACSCs, and contribute [...]

Background: Code blue situations, being uncommon yet stressful, require excellent team communication; they can pose challenges for deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) clinicians, trainees, and interpreters, though DHH providers are a growing source of language-concordant care for DHH people, an underserved population. No known training specifically addresses such challenges. As educators and mentors, we [...]

Background: Poor communication among providers is a barrier to seamless transitions in patient care. This problem is compounded when patients undergo interhospital transfer (IHT), where complex patients are transferred between providers, settings and healthcare systems. Templated notes have been used in other hospital-based care transitions to improve communication but have not been widely utilized during [...]