Pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) is a fast-moving field, so having the best information is part of being a good doctor. But try going through all the relevant journals every month and pulling out the relevant findings. It’s a tall task.
Never fear! Akshata Hopkins, MD, an academic hospitalist at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Amit Singh, MD, of Stanford (Calif.) Children’s Health, have done the work for you. They reviewed every issue from 18 relevant journals over the last year and chose studies that are “hot topics” and involve important, evolving clinical questions that any physician caring for hospitalized children should know about.
As pediatric hospitalists, “we’re looking at articles from a pediatric hospital medicine standpoint, but the way that we chose the articles was based on topics that are prevalent to not only academic centers but community centers – and so it’s more broad,” Dr. Hopkins said. “The topics themselves are not necessarily new, but there are nuances to management [for which] every year there is new data that’s coming out. So what we’ve done is digest it for them.”
Dr. Akshata Hopkins
Their session at 5:30 p.m. today, “Pediatric Update: Top Articles in Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2016,” will touch on both clinical and systems issues, often with a case used as a way to introduce topics, followed by a review of findings from a recent article. Dr. Hopkins said that questions will be answered throughout the session. Topics will include the management of young febrile infants, nasogastric feeding in bronchiolitis, prediction of severe pneumonia outcomes in children, and a review of quality measures that include patient experience and antibiotic stewardship.
“With the rise of more PCR testing and discussions of Choosing Wisely and high-value care, there’s more testing available,” Dr. Hopkins said. “But what is that going to cost versus what are the benefits that it brings? Are these tests valuable and in what way? And that’s kind of a hot topic. It depends on the age of the child and actually the results of [testing] are a little surprising.”
Dr. Amit Singh
Dr. Singh said he hopes the session appeals to hospitalists in a wide array of care settings. “You want to make sure you are covering the breadth and scope of practice we might find ourselves in, whether it is in an adult hospital as the only hospital-based pediatrician covering ED consults, a NICU, a delivery room, and a small pediatric ward, or whether it is a pediatric hospitalist leading a team of medical students and residents in a large, free-standing, university-affiliated, children’s hospital,” he said.
Pediatric Update: Top Articles in Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2016
Wednesday, 5:30–6:20 p.m.