Background: Older adults presenting with trauma have worse outcomes than younger adults with similar injury severity. In 2013, the American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Improvement Program published guidelines that recommended geriatrics consultation (GC) for high-risk older adults. Many trauma centers implemented GC in congruence with these guidelines, but the impact on patient outcomes is [...]

Background: The Emergency Room departments and the Intensive Care Units (ICU) remain the main locations for the treatment of patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Nevertheless, health-care systems may have limited resources and insufficient ICU beds for attending patients who might benefit from more intensive monitoring than in a general ward. In this context, [...]

Background: Sepsis is a common, costly, and mortal clinical syndrome. Many delays in sepsis recognition and intervention are due to “data latency,” the period of time between data suggestive of sepsis being entered in the EHR to identification and interpretation by a care provider. The magnitude of this delay can be significant, as the diagnostic [...]

Background: Accurate and timely documentation is essential for patient care, as well as the appropriate reflection of patient complexity and severity of illness. Most hospitals utilize a traditional retrospective or contemporaneous physician-query strategy to ensure documentation accurately impacts performance data, reputation/ranking, and reimbursement.  Purpose: Here, we highlight three unique, hospitalist-driven interventions to support accurate documentation [...]

Background: Epidemiological data across the USA show health disparities in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality by race/ethnicity. The state of New Mexico has the largest Hispanic and the third largest American Indian/Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) populations per capita in the United States. Complications from severe COVID-19 and mortality are largely unreported in diverse cohorts of hospitalized [...]

Background: Approximately 5% of patients hospitalized at our institution develop clinically significant alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS). Inpatients who develop AWS may experience seizures, delirium, ICU transfer and prolonged length of stay. While the mortality of AWS, mostly related to delirium tremens, has decreased over time, severe alcohol withdrawal is still associated with a mortality of [...]