Background: Hospital scheduling and structure has the potential to smooth the flow and impact quality outcomes. The most predominant hospitalist schedule follows the seven-on/seven-off scheduling where hospitalists would switch off service after the 7th day, also known as switch day, to the next incoming provider. However, there is limited data on which hospitalist switch day [...]

Background: Hospitalized patients who are at high-risk for mortality and readmission represent a unique population requiring tailored interventions to improve care outcomes. Advance care planning (ACP) conversations in the inpatient setting can help align care goals with patient preferences, yet their influence on measurable clinical outcomes in this vulnerable population is not well understood. Methods: [...]

Background: Tobacco use remains a major public health issue in the United States as it is linked to a broad spectrum of serious diseases. Although intensive inpatient tobacco treatment programs have shown success, the impact of prescription of smoking cessation medications alone on hospital readmissions has not been thoroughly studied. This study aims to assess [...]

Background: Timely post-discharge office visits reduce readmission risk, but the association between telemedicine follow-up visits and readmission in patients discharged from the medicine service remains unclear. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant increase in telemedicine utilization for post-discharge follow-up, prompting questions about its association with readmission. Thus, our primary objective was to assess the [...]

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: Patients who complete a primary care provider (PCP) follow-up visit within 7 days of hospital discharge have lower odds of 14-day readmission (p=0.002) OR= 0.45 (95% CI: 0.27 – 0.73) compared to patients who do not at our academic institution. However, only 44% of patients complete this visit. Patients who were scheduled with their [...]

Background: Patient-reported measures including health confidence correlate with health outcomes, such as hospital utilization and post-acute care (PAC) needs within research settings. A more recent approach has been to develop learning health systems (LHS) with these measures to incorporate research findings into clinical care at a rapid rate. We have found that a measure of [...]

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of hospital readmissions, with national 30-day readmission rates reaching as high as 22.6% [1]. These readmissions place a significant financial burden on healthcare systems, with one study showing that the cost of a COPD readmission can exceed that of the initial admission by 18% [2]. [...]

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) conversations are essential for aligning care with patients’ values, particularly for high-risk hospitalized patients. However, there are limited tools in hospital medicine to identify and prompt clinicians to engage in ACP conversations effectively. Best Practice Alerts (BPAs) are commonly used in electronic medical records (EMRs) to streamline clinical workflows but [...]