Background:    Electronic consults (“e-consults”) are commonly used in the outpatient setting to allow subspecialists to provide documented recommendations to primary care doctors without a face-to-face patient encounter. In the inpatient setting, a consult that does not require a patient encounter is often handled via informal conversation (“curbside consult”) – the consultant is not reimbursed [...]

Background: Acquired hyponatremia and hypernatremia are common in hospitalized patients and correcting dysnatremia may improve outcomes. Nephrology assistance with dysnatremia may help optimize management, but specialist resources are limited. Targeted Automatic e-Consultation (TACo), a model of selective e-consultation based on automated identification of patients from the electronic health record, has been applied for glycemic management [...]

Background: Inpatient subspecialty consultation is one of the most common physician practices in the care of hospitalized patients. As per a CMS report, approximately 33,000 inpatient consultation occurred per day in 2008 costing Medicare approximately $1.9 billion. Common reasons for requesting a consultation include assistance with treatment, diagnosis, and request for a procedure. Consult quality [...]