Background: Driven by meaningful use (MU) incentives, many safety net systems have adopted patient portals, which offer patients online access to their health information. Portal use correlates with increased engagement and better health outcomes, but there are many challenges to effectively engage patients and meet MU metrics in safety net settings. Purpose: We implemented a [...]

Background: Studies have shown that care transitions represent times of great risk, especially to vulnerable patients; medication reconciliation is a major component of ensuring safe care transitions. Yet, challenges exist to obtaining a best possible home medication list (BPHML) on a provider, patient, and institutional level. Academic hospitals have large pools of in-training providers. Safety [...]

Background: Nearly 80% of adults will experience non-specific low back pain at some point in their life.(1) In the absence of concerning features such as saddle anesthesia, imaging studies are not indicated and can lead to a downstream cascade of services which can result in undue physical, emotional, and financial harm to the patient.(2-6) As [...]

Background: Social isolation and loneliness (SI+L), two largely silent social determinants of health (SDOH), are associated with negative health outcomes such as the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, higher rates of depression, increased hospital readmissions, and increased use of healthcare services. SI+L are also common, with one in five US adults reporting feelings of SI [...]

Background: Social isolation (SI) is a largely silent and unrecognized social determinant of health that has negative health outcomes, including increased mortality, depression, hospital readmissions, and emergency room visits. In addition, a recent study revealed that SI and loneliness (L) are self-reported as often as food and housing insecurity. While hospitals readily work on food [...]

Background: Patients admitted to hospitals often have impaired capacity and contribute to a significant number of prolonged non-acute hospital days, often due to requiring a guardian for decision-making.(1,2) This puts incapacitated, unbefriended patients at a disproportionately increased risk of healthcare associated complications, loss of functional ability, and impacts those people and systems that care for [...]