Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) of the inferior vena cava (IVC) can help to noninvasively predict the effectiveness of treatment for volume-sensitive conditions, such as acute heart failure and shock. Recently POCUS-IVC has also been used to iteratively tailor fluid treatment to patient-specific targets. In real-world clinical settings, such iterative assessments are necessarily obtained by multiple [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) of the inferior vena cava (IVC) can help to noninvasively predict the effectiveness of treatment for volume-sensitive conditions, such as acute heart failure and shock. Recently POCUS-IVC has also been used to iteratively tailor fluid treatment to patient-specific targets. In real-world clinical settings, such iterative assessments are necessarily obtained by multiple [...]

Background: Acute heart failure (AHF) is the major cause of hospital admission and death. Furthermore, patients admitted with AHF have high readmission rates and  postdischarge mortality. Although there have been some reports, which demonstrated the predictive factors of death among patients of acute heart failure in the USA and Europe, there has been no studies [...]

Background: Acute heart failure (AHF) hospitalization is about one million hospital admissions per year and has tripled in the last 30 years in the United States. These illustrate the importance of recognizing early signs of AHF. Therefore, risk stratification can aid physicians in selecting appropriate evidence-based medical therapies. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is [...]

Background: Do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders are intended to allow patients to forgo cardiopulmonary resuscitate (CPR) in the event of cardiac arrest. They are applied to cases of cardiac arrest, and they cannot be applied to any situation other than cardiac arrest. However, prior studies have shown that the presence of DNR orders led to changes in treatment [...]

Case Presentation: A 76 year-old African American female with no past medical history presented with new onset shortness of breath and substernal chest pressure of three week duration. She noted that she had been previously healthy without any issues prior to this incident. On presentation, the patient was afebrile and normotensive (125/76) but tachycardic (110 [...]

Background: Acute heart failure exacerbations remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and are associated with high rates of hospital admissions and healthcare expenditure. As hospital medicine (HM) primary service footprint expands, further information regarding patient care provided by HM compared to cardiology (CV) is needed. As part of a broader effort to improve [...]

Case Presentation: 56-year-old female presented to ED with a two-week history of fever, chills, headache, intermittent nausea and vomiting, mild abdominal pain. Her comorbidities included Diabetes mellitus, Morbid obesity, and Hypertension. She had mild leukocytosis on complete blood count and had physical examination significant for bilateral rhonchi in chest auscultation. She was admitted under the [...]