NATIONAL HARBOR, MD—As fast as the annual Research, Innovation, and Clinical Vignette competition is growing, research abstracts focused on technology applications for quality improvement and patient safety are growing nearly as quickly.
One good example on display Saturday during the HM13 oral presentations was research that documented Internet use by re-hospitalized patients from S. Ryan Greysen, MD, MHS, MA, of the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Greysen and colleagues found that two-thirds of re-hospitalized patients had Internet access at home and half had looked up health information within the past year, but most did not use the Internet to communicate with PCPs, or to manage medical appointments or prescriptions—three core tasks in helping to avoid readmissions.
One patient told the researchers he went home with a nebulizer but could not recall instructions given in the hospital for its use. “But he used YouTube to find an instructional video,” Dr. Greysen said. “We need to tailor online patient resources to focus on post-discharge tasks.”
HM13 VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Hospitalists practice physical exam skills, learn to teach them better
More than 800 abstracts were submitted and nearly 600 were accepted for HM13. And technology applications for improving hospital care are more popular than ever, said Eduard Vasilevskis, MD, hospitalist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and co-chair of SHM’s research abstracts judging committee. “What’s increasingly apparent is that people are trying to harness the electronic health record (EHR) for research,” Dr. Vasilevskis added.
HM13 Research, Innovations, and Clinical Vignettes Competition WINNERS
RESEARCH: “Comparison of Palliative Care Consultation Services in California Hospitals Between 2007 and 2011”
By Steven Pantilat, MD, David O’Riordan, PhD, University of California at San Francisco
INNOVATIONS: “SEPTRIS: Improving Sepsis Recognition and Management Through a Mobile Educational Game”
By Lisa Shieh, Eileen Pummer, J. Tsui, B. Tobin, J. Leung, M. Strehlow, W. Daines, P. Maggio, K. Hooper, Stanford Hospital, Stanford, Calif.
ADULT VIGNETTE: “Something Fishy in Dixie”
By Leslie Anne Cassidy, Sarah Lofgren, MD, Praneetha Thulasi, MD, Laurence Beer, MD, Daniel Dressler, MD, MSc, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta
PEDIATRIC VIGNETTE: “You Can’t Handle the Truth: Another Cause of Headache with Neurologic Deficits”
By Richard Bloomfield, MD, Eric Edwards, MD, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, N.C.