Background: Patient portal use has been associated with improved patient experience, safety, and health outcomes.1,2 To keep patients better connected to their providers, our institution aimed to expand MyChart utilization. We piloted a standard operating procedure (SOP) to enhance MyChart education and uptake among those admitted to an inpatient general medicine unit. Purpose: Our intervention […]

Background: Oral case presentations are an integral part of patient care and medical education on internal medicine rounds. Presentations provide opportunities for learners to synthesize and integrate pertinent information and to formulate assessments and plans, while simultaneously enabling supervising physicians to identify gaps in learner knowledge or clinical reasoning. Despite ubiquitous modernizations in medicine, the […]

Background: Frequently hospitalized patients face unique challenges in navigating health care systems. Although practice-, hospital-, and accountable care organization-level programs to address the needs of these patients exist, interventions have had mixed results, with only some demonstrating reduction in hospitalizations or costs. To best serve frequently hospitalized patients and improve future interventions, clinicians, leaders, and […]

Background: As patient satisfaction surveys become a routine part of physician performance evaluations, it is increasingly important to study the tools that are utilized to evaluate this performance. Little research has been performed to assess the metrics of these tools. Top box percentage is frequently used to report physician performance but the relationship of top […]

Background: Use of stigmatizing language in clinical note documentation is a recognized problem, but such notes may be viewed disparately and irregularly. Whether such language is also used in highly visible behavioral alerts (BAs), which are presented forcefully through push notifications and viewed repeatedly whenever a chart is opened, is unknown. Further, whether BAs with […]

Background: Over the last few decades, roles and specialties in medicine have proliferated, complicating inpatient care. Care teams can include multiple types of clinicians, whose roles and responsibilities may be unclear. This can impact how patients understand who is in charge and various aspects of their care. We sought to examine these questions:1. How well […]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of the healthcare system and has led to various restrictions including strict visitation policies, limited patient interactions with healthcare workers to mitigate exposure risk, and donning/doffing personal protective equipment (PPE) before each interaction. These interactions have disproportionately affected patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) in Austin, Texas. […]

Background: Communication with consultant teams is critical to the hospitalist workflow, especially in hospitals with multiple levels of hierarchy due to varying training backgrounds and experiences. We aimed to increase knowledge of the communication dynamic between hospitalists and consultant attendings in medical and surgical specialties. Methods: We surveyed Emory Division of Hospital Medicine physicians and Advanced Practice Providers to assess interactions with consultant attendings. Surveys […]

Background: Communication, teamwork, and conflict navigation amongst physician colleagues are core competencies. Yet, how these core elements of professional behavior are enacted in practice remains poorly characterized, and interpersonal interactions continue to be a central source of workplace conflict. While this has been described in the nursing literature, physicians’ experience of conflict with other physician […]

Background: Distrust of the healthcare system is longstanding in Black communities. This may especially threaten the health of the population when a highly contagious infection strikes. Perceptions, knowledge, and personal safety practices related to COVID-19 are unknown among hospitalized Black patients who distrust the healthcare system. Methods: Black patients hospitalized patients were surveyed between November […]