Background: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (SSRD) is an umbrella term for a wide variety of disorders commonly encountered in the inpatient pediatric setting, including conversion disorder, amplified pain syndrome, and psychogenic non-epileptiform seizures. These patients can be high utilizers of medical resources. The hospitalist is often charged with ruling out a medical diagnosis and [...]

Background: Delays in the discharge process of hospitalized patients impact patient flow and lead to increased costs and slower progression of care. As hospitalist work becomes increasingly shift based, there are concerns for proper patient handoffs and hesitancy with clinical progression of care overnight. This leads to daytime patient flow congestion and is a significant [...]

Background: The Improving Pediatric Patient-Centered Care Transitions (IMPACT) Multi-site Quality Improvement Collaborative aims to improve discharge transitions by testing a patient-centered transition bundle. Teach-back is a core component. This is a well-established method of confirming understanding. However, limited evidence exists about the effect of using teach-back for pediatric discharge education on parental knowledge/understanding of essential [...]

Background: The low published survival rate of pediatric in-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest (25-38%) 1 has led to the development of early warning systems (EWS) to identify patients at risk for deterioration. On our general pediatric unit, we implemented the published validated Children’s Hospital Early Warning System (CHEWS)2 in 04/2021. This composite scoring tool includes caregiver assessment [...]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated rapid changes in healthcare delivery in the United States, including changes in the care of hospitalized children. Our study aimed to identify the major changes in inpatient pediatric healthcare delivery and potential learnings from these changes. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews for this qualitative study. We purposefully sampled hospitals [...]

Background: In 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ position statement, “Guiding Principles for Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) Programs,” emphasized the importance of professional development for each PHM physician. However, little is published about PHM physicians’ perspectives on professional development. The objectives of this study were to explore pediatric hospitalists’ perceptions of professional development needs, desired [...]

Background: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (SSRD) is an umbrella term for a wide variety of disorders commonly encountered in the inpatient pediatric setting, including conversion disorder, amplified pain syndrome, and psychogenic non-epileptiform seizures. These patients can be high utilizers of medical resources. The hospitalist is often charged with ruling out a medical diagnosis and [...]

Case Presentation: 6 month old former 35 week twin Hispanic girls presented to the ED for evaluation of bulging fontanelles for almost one week.  Both twins had been fussy for 24 hours, and Twin A also had rhinorrhea for 24 hours and high fever to 102.9 degrees Fahrenheit on the day of evaluation.  There was [...]

Background: Delays in the discharge process of hospitalized patients impact patient flow and lead to increased costs and slower progression of care. As hospitalist work becomes increasingly shift based, there are concerns for proper patient handoffs and hesitancy with clinical progression of care overnight. This leads to daytime patient flow congestion and is a significant [...]

Background: The Improving Pediatric Patient-Centered Care Transitions (IMPACT) Multi-site Quality Improvement Collaborative aims to improve discharge transitions by testing a patient-centered transition bundle. Teach-back is a core component. This is a well-established method of confirming understanding. However, limited evidence exists about the effect of using teach-back for pediatric discharge education on parental knowledge/understanding of essential [...]