Background: Mental illness is common among hospitalized patients and is associated with increased length of stay, higher costs, and worse clinical outcomes. Inpatient psychiatry consultations have traditionally held a reactive model, in which primary teams obtain consultation for patients that have developed active psychiatric symptoms. The reactive model has frequently led to missed opportunities to [...]

Background: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that healthcare workers experience workplace violence at 4 times the national average and providing care to patients with decompensated psychiatric illnesses disproportionately increases the risk of workplace assault (1). 20-40% of hospitalized medical patients have comorbid, decompensated psychiatric conditions that can impair insight regarding chronic medical conditions, [...]

Background: The care management and discharge planning of psychiatric patients experiencing homelessness (PPEH) is an area of debate. Due to the lack of research on best practices and community resources available, there are currently insufficient actionable guidelines in place to properly assist PPEH in their psychiatric care post-discharge, leading to high rates of readmission. Though [...]

Background: Veterans in care at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers have a higher prevalence of Hepatitis C (HCV) antibody positivity than the general population1,2. Despite high tolerability and cure rates approaching 95% with new direct-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs, a significant proportion of veterans have not been initiated on treatment due to barriers including active substance [...]

Background: Hospital medicine continues to expand and hospitalist practitioners are now rising to challenges of other venues looking to capture the value hospitalists bring. One area with a paucity of such skill but a rising need is the realm of eating disorder medicine. Purpose: To showcase hospital medicine in a niche role, specifically eating disorder [...]

Case Presentation: A 58-year-old male with a history of chronic anemia and schizophrenia presented to the emergency department (ED) from home for seven days of worsening COVID-19 respiratory disease. He was admitted for hypovolemic shock and non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). His home dose of haloperidol 5 mg daily and 20 mg nightly was continued. [...]

Background: Decisional capacity requires four dimensions: 1) understanding of information given to make a choice 2) appreciation of situation as it relates to oneself and own situation 3) ability to engage in comparative and consequential reasoning while rationally manipulating information given and 4) ability to communicate a decision. Recently, there have been 2 main challenges [...]

Background: Suicide attempt and self-injury (SA/SI) are frequent reasons for medical hospitalizations, yet little is known about length of stay (LOS) among youth hospitalized for SA/SI. LOS is commonly used to measure quality of patient care and resource use within hospitals, and a comprehensive understanding of factors associated with LOS among youth admitted for SA/SI [...]