Background: Early risk stratification scores utilizing data available at the bedside have been used regularly to identify patients at greatest risk of poor outcomes from rapidly evolving conditions like sepsis. Little is known about how point-of-care scores developed for sepsis perform at predicting outcomes in large, heterogeneous cohorts of patients with COVID-19. Our objective was [...]

Background: Hospitalists frequently lead family meetings with patients and family members. Shared decision making employed during family meetings is believed to foster mutual understanding of its participants, including understanding of prognosis. However, this assumption has not been empirically assessed. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of data from a trial of a decision support tool [...]

Background: Research surrounding COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) is rapidly increasing, including the study of biomarkers for predicting outcomes. There is little data examining the correlation between serum albumin levels and COVID-19 disease severity. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether admission albumin levels reliably predict outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed [...]

Background: Serious Illness Conversations (SICs) lead to a better understanding of patient values and preferences, improved patient and family satisfaction, and other benefits. Prognostic awareness and early identification of patients who may benefit from an SIC remains a challenge. Epic’s Risk of Unplanned Readmission (Readmission Risk Score), a composite score (0-100) that includes clinical factors [...]

Background: Prognostication of survival in advanced cancer patients has been challenging and contributes to poor illness understanding. Disagreements among providers about prognosis occur and is a less studied phenomenon. We asked the Surprise Question (SQ), “Would I be surprised if this patient died within the next 1 year, 6 months, and 1 month?” to Palliative [...]

Background: Prognostication of survival in advanced cancer patients has been challenging and contributes to poor illness understanding.  Prognostic disagreement occurs even amongst providers and is a less studied phenomenon.  We introduced the Surprise Question (SQ), “Would I be surprised if this patient died in the next 1 year, 6 months, and 1 month?”, at multidisciplinary [...]

Background: Limited data exist about the magnitude of and the factors associated with one-year mortality of medical patients after their hospital discharge. Factors known during the hospitalization may be associated with high mortality risk. One may also wonder whether healthcare utilization during the first 30 days after discharge are also of any prognostic value for [...]

Case Presentation: A 95 year old woman with a remote history of treated breast cancer and endometrial cancer presented to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and somnolence. One month prior, the patient was living independently in her usual state of health. She developed dysuria and malaise and visited an outside hospital. Routine laboratory testing [...]

Case Presentation: A 72-year-old male with a history of tobacco use (12 pack-years) presented to the hospital with 4 months of a progressive nonproductive cough. He experienced coughing spells lasting minutes with positional changes. The patient additionally endorsed night sweats, unexpected weight loss of 11 pounds, and dyspnea on exertion. In the days prior to [...]

Background: Early risk stratification scores utilizing data available at the bedside have been used regularly to identify patients at greatest risk of poor outcomes from rapidly evolving conditions like sepsis. Little is known about how point-of-care scores developed for sepsis perform at predicting outcomes in large, heterogeneous cohorts of patients with COVID-19. Our objective was [...]