Background: Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 can clinically deteriorate in the second week of illness after a period of initial stability. Thus, an important clinical question is determining when it is safe to discharge these patients from the hospital without overwhelming hospitals’ capacities. Unfortunately, discharge criteria for COVID-19 patients are often based on expert opinion, with [...]

Background: The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) instituted the Readmissions Reduction Program to incentivize improvements in care transitions for patients with several common and serious illnesses, including heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, and more recently COPD exacerbations. The HOSPITAL score has been shown to accurately identify medical patients at high-risk for 30-day [...]

Background: The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) instituted the Readmissions Reduction Program to incentivize improvements in care transitions for patients with several common and serious illnesses, including heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, and more recently COPD exacerbations. The HOSPITAL score has been shown to accurately identify medical patients at high-risk for 30-day [...]

Background: Disparities in screening mammography use persist among low-income women, even those who are insured, despite the proven mortality benefit. We evaluated the prevalence of breast cancer screening non-adherence among hospitalized women and their receptivity to inpatient screening mammography as a novel approach to increase breast cancer screening rate. Methods: A cross sectional study was [...]

Background: Researchers across the globe have continued their effort in identifying important risk factors for severe COVID-19 infection. Patient demographics including age, race, gender, and certain chronic medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure have been identified as the important risk factors for severity. To simply the risk stratification process, the CHA2DS2-VASc [...]

Background: Complex patients represent a challenge in the health care system, as they are frequently associated with high health care utilization, longer hospital stays, and higher costs. Nonetheless, the characteristics of the complex patients in the hospital setting are not well known, and tools to help hospitals to identify them early in the process of [...]

Background: Increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) has been noted among cancer patients as compared to non-cancer. Cancer associated thrombosis caused three folds increased hospitalizations, increased inpatient/outpatient medical and prescription claims, and increased total health care costs per patient. Our objective was to study demographic, clinical and laboratory risk factors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) among [...]

Background: Anemia in patients with heart failure (HF) is common. Data reported shows a variable prevalence ranging from 10-40%. Additionally, it has also been demonstrated that it is associated with poor outcomes. Multiple risk factors have been shown to contribute to the presence of anemia in HF patients. The population of the Rio Grande Valley [...]

Background: In order to most efficiently improve transition of care, hospitals need to target intensive discharge interventions at those patients at high risk of unplanned readmission. The “HOSPITAL” score, derived previously in the US, is an easy to use prediction model that accurately identifies medical patients at high risk of readmission. It includes the following [...]

Case Presentation: A 55-year-old Hispanic male with PMH of hypertension presented to the emergency department (ED) with a 2-week history of flu-like symptoms including malaise, fever and chills, anorexia, dry cough and night sweats. In the ED he was found to be lethargic, short of breath, and had abdominal distention accompanied by urinary and bowel [...]