News
Pediatric Hospitals Identify Patient Care Benchmarks
February 2, 2015
Citing a lack of accepted benchmarks for quality improvement in pediatric hospital care, researchers described in Pediatrics their process of establishing benchmarks for the treatment of asthma, bronchiolitis, and pneumonia, three common conditions treated by pediatric hospitalists that together amo
News
Fewer Hospital-Acquired Conditions Saves Estimated 50,000 Lives
February 2, 2015
Estimated total number of saved lives from 2011 to 2013 as a result of reductions in the incidence of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) in U.S. hospitals, compared with HAC rates in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
News
Fit Direct Observation of Medical Trainees Into Your Day
January 7, 2015
All of us who work with housestaff understand that a crucial component of teaching clinical medicine is to take the time to both supervise resident work and deliver constructive feedback on its quality.
News
Academic Hospitalist Groups Use Observation Status More Frequently
January 7, 2015
Insurers’ use of certain criteria to separate hospital stays into inpatient or observation status remains widespread. Observation status ensures provider reimbursement for hospitalizations deemed necessary by clinical judgment but not qualifying as inpatient care.
Opinion
How to Use Hospitalist Productivity, Compensation Survey Data
January 7, 2015
The 2014 State of Hospital Medicine report (SOHM), published by SHM in the fall of even years, is unquestionably the most robust and informative data available to understand the hospitalist workforce marketplace.
News
UpToDate Adds Palliative Care
December 3, 2014
UpToDate, a leading clinical decision support resource for physicians, in July added palliative care as the newest of its 22 medical specialties.
News
Antibiotic Overprescribing Sparks Call for Stronger Stewardship
December 2, 2014
Antibiotic overprescription remains a problem in the U.S. and abroad and shows no signs of slowing.
News
Medicare Readmissions Penalties Expected to Reach $428 Million
December 2, 2014
CMS started the third year of its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program on October 1, with 2,610 U.S.
News
Cut Costs, Improve Quality and Patient Experience
December 2, 2014
“Now that’s a fire!” —Eddie Murphy This is the final column in my five-part series tracing the history of the hospitalist movement and the factors that propelled it into becoming the fastest growing medical specialty in history and the mainstay of American medicine that it has become. In the
News
Early Warning System Boosts Sepsis Detection, Care
November 19, 2014
An alert system that monitors inpatients at risk of developing sepsis can prompt early sepsis care, can speed patient transfers to the ICU, and may even reduce mortality risk from sepsis. A recent study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine reports on an early warning and response system