Background: Transforming hospital operations to optimize patient experience begins with a collaborative care team. The geographic re-location of physicians into one unit with an entire care team, in addition to the implementation of Structured Interdisciplinary Bedside Rounds (SIBR), have been linked to multiple outcomes related to effective care team communication and collaboration, including patient safety [...]

Background: Hospital medicine groups are often quickly expanding, which causes strategic planning to focus primarily on clinical needs and staffing. It can be difficult to find opportunities for goal setting where consensus within the group can be achieved. This is made even more difficult by the typical hospitalist group providing 24/7/365 coverage, so at no [...]

Background: For hospitalists rounding on inpatient units, admitting new patients at varying times through the day greatly disrupts workflow efficiency. Deferring these admissions to the next shift can result in delays in patient care. Admitting teams dedicated to the needs of new patients offer a potential solution. Methods: A quality improvement project was conducted on [...]

Background:  Recent Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rules require hospitals to have their physicians submit inpatient admission orders and certification prior to a patient’s discharge in order to justify hospitalization reimbursement; however, CMS does not specify how hospitals are to achieve this regulation. Use of Health Information Technology (HIT) tools has significantly expanded, [...]

Background: Reducing length of stay to improve access, minimize hospital-associated morbidity, and reduce cost is a top priority at many hospitals. Information about barriers and delays impacting discharge (i.e., arranging subacute nursing facility placement, setting up a new dialysis seat, receiving consult recommendations for discharge) is rarely documented and often obtained anecdotally or qualitatively. This [...]

Background: Hospital medicine is the fastest growing specialty in the United States. An interesting aspect of the rapid expansion of hospital medicine is the current expansion of the field beyond North America. While the health care systems, regulations and cultural norms in these nations differ, some of the reasons for the development of hospital medicine [...]

Background: Hospitalist groups must be able to respond to unexpected staff absences due to sick calls, personal emergencies, and unanticipated leave, all of which have substantially increased since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. They also need to be able to respond to ongoing fluctuations in census related to seasonal respiratory viral surges, as well as institutional [...]

Background: Structured peer observation programs – in which clinicians observe one another and provide feedback – are potential mediators for spreading “best practices” and encouraging feedback among a group. Studies show hospitalist peer observation programs are feasible, perceived favorably by participants, and lead to improvements in self-reported assessments of teaching abilities. However, existing peer-observation models [...]

Background: Our experience developing the Comprehensive Care Physician (CCP) program within the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago has illustrated the value of relational continuity in the care of patients with complex medical needs. For patients with increased risk of hospitalization and who are willing to find a new primary care physician, [...]

Background: The optimal duration of hospitalist clinical blocks is unknown. Longer block lengths may offer greater continuity and discontinuity between providers has been adversely associated with 30-day mortality and readmissions. However, extending days worked may lead to fatigue and negatively impact hospitalist satisfaction or contribute to burnout. We conducted a randomized trial comparing two different [...]