Background: Efficient discharge planning is crucial for improving hospital capacity strain and patient care. Multidisciplinary rounds (MDRs) have demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing communication and care coordination, but their impact on resident teaching teams has been less studied. The expected discharge date (EDD), among other key metrics in discharge efficiency, helps predict bed capacity, optimize patient [...]

Background: Medication reconciliation during admission is a critical step in ensuring patient safety and preventing medication errors, particularly as patients often receive new medications during their hospital stays. However, physicians may not always have access to a complete and accurate medication history, which can lead to risks such as drug interactions, incorrect dosing, or adverse [...]

Background: Medication reconciliation is a complex process intended to identify and resolve discrepancies by maintaining the most accurate medication list for a patient to provide ultimate care. The Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals emphasize completion of medication reconciliation on admission within an organization to reduce the likelihood of harm to patients.1 Our medical center [...]

Background: Syncope is characterized by a transient loss of consciousness, with vasovagal syncope being the most common cause. According to the American College of Cardiology (1), routine cardiac imaging, including transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), is not recommended in the evaluation of syncope unless there is a clinical suspicion of a cardiac cause, based on the patient’s [...]

Background: The Bronx has the highest rate of people living with HIV among New York City boroughs, with South Bronx zip codes exceeding the statewide average by over four times. Despite this, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) utilization in the Bronx significantly lags, with a PrEP-to-need ratio over nine times lower than Manhattan’s and four times lower [...]

Background: Concerningly, COPD exacerbations are the 3rd leading cause of readmissions nationwide, accounting for 60,000 readmissions annually. Patients hospitalized with COPD exacerbations have a 22.6% likelihood of readmission within 30 days, partially contributed to by their suboptimal disease awareness. However, there are educational tools that can be leveraged to improve treatment adherence, patient outcomes, and [...]

Background: Opioid overdose is a well-established cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States1. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist and harm-reducing treatment with a complex history of prescribing behaviors, attitudes, availability and reimbursement2. Interventions to increase appropriate co-prescription of naloxone include government mandates3 and Electronic Health Record (EHR) clinical decision support4. Our institution used [...]

Background: A 2013 Mayo Clinic initiative encouraged proactive communication between physicians and nurses by paging each to bedside for morning rounds, improving physician and nursing perceptions of teamwork. Utilizing a mobile-electronic-health-record-based alert for such a process may reduce implementation costs and feasibility barriers. Previously, we piloted an updated interprofessional bedside rounds (IBR) model that utilized [...]

Background: High inpatient team censuses are associated with poor patient outcomes, impact trainee education, and contribute to burnout. Since 2019 at the Washington DC VA Medical Center, inpatient medicine team censuses have risen and have been cited as contributing to burnout and decreased educational opportunities. A medical service team expansion was piloted with a goal [...]

Background: The opioid crisis remains a threat to public health nationwide. In NYC, there were 3,046 drug overdose deaths in 2023, a decrease of only 1% from 2022, with fentanyl involved in 80% of these fatalities. In 2021, the emergency department at our institution began distributing take-home naloxone kits to at-risk individuals on discharge through [...]