Articles related to Hospitalist

Hospitals are seeing trends with which no one in hospital management has experience: inflation rates above 5%, higher staff shortages, increased staffing costs, supply chain challenges, and more. Hospitalists have a proven benefit in reducing length of stay, improving with nursing and allied health staff, and finding other ways to reduce cost and utilization.

In the ER, the patient was disoriented and appeared pale and diaphoretic. He initially complained of dizziness, shortness of breath, ringing in the ears, and feeling “weird.” Temperature and oxygen saturation were normal. BP was 182/112, and blood glucose was 152. Initial labs and studies showed no obvious cause for the patient’s problem. Follow Dr. Antonio Granfone through the differential and the ultimate discovery and correction of the cause.

According to the findings of the study, gabapentin should not be used on a regular basis. Individualization is required, based on the type of pain and the risk of delirium. If gabapentin is used to control postoperative pain, it must be closely monitored for the development of delirium. Low-dose opioids, along with nonpharmacologic pain management strategies such as postoperative physical therapy and mobilization, can still be used safely in the study population. Rather than relying on a single medication, a more holistic approach to postoperative pain control in the hospital setting is required.

Reports on the Vaccine Safety Datalink flagged the need to investigate a potential increased risk those 65 years of age and older, for ischemic stroke in the first 21 days after receiving the bivalent Pfizer-BioNTech booster. FDA has parallel monitoring systems to confirm or fail to validate a safety signal. In this case, those other systems did not confirm the Vaccine Safety Datalink flag.

Healthgrades communicates performance in two ways—through ratings and awards—to assist consumers in evaluating and comparing hospital performance specific to specialist service lines and speciality emphasis areas. Using Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) file purchased from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the years 2019 through 2021, hospitals were evaluated for overall clinical excellence and measure performance. Data on patient outcomes for 31 diseases or treatments were examined for almost all hospitals in the nation. Also, with the fewest occurrences of 14 avoidable patient safety events, hospitals in the top 10% of the country are honored with the Patient Safety Excellence Award, and analyzing data from surveys of the hospital’s own patients to evaluate patient experience across 10 metrics, the top 15% of hospitals receive the Outstanding Patient Experience Award. Finally, each year, Healthgrades recognizes hospitals in the United States that offer the most common gynecologic treatments and where patients are at a decreased risk of complications during their stay for labor and delivery.

A layered approach to care is described with lifestyle interventions being a key feature of the updated recommendations. The recommendations now include therapies proven to improve cardiovascular and kidney outcomes in patients with diabetes and CKD.