News
Clinical Care Pathway for Cellulitis Can Help Reduce Antibiotic Use, Cost
November 4, 2015
Clinical question: How would an evidence-based clinical pathway for cellulitis affect process metrics, patient outcomes, and clinical cost? Background: Cellulitis is a common hospital problem, but its evaluation and treatment vary widely.
News
Can Low-Risk Patients with VTE Be Discharged from ED on Rivaroxabon?
November 4, 2015
Clinical question: Can a low-risk patient newly diagnosed with VTE in the ED be immediately discharged home on a direct factor Xa inhibitor? Background: Studies have shown that rivaroxaban incurs a risk of 2.1% in VTE recurrence and of 9.4% in clinically relevant major and non-major bleeding (in
News
Coronary CT Angiography, Perfusion Imaging Effective for Evaluating Patients With Chest Pain
November 4, 2015
Clinical question: When evaluating the intermediate-risk patient with chest pain, should coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) be used instead of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI)? Background: CCTA has been shown in prior randomized controlled trials to save time and money compared to
News
ED Lung Ultrasound Useful for Differentiating Cardiogenic from Noncardiogenic Dyspnea
November 4, 2015
Clinical question: Is lung ultrasound a useful tool for helping to diagnose acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF)? Background: Lung ultrasound is an emerging bedside tool that has been promoted to help evaluate lung water content to help clinicians differentiate ADHF from other causes of dyspn
News
When Should Hospitalists Order Continuous Cardiac Monitoring?
November 4, 2015
Case Two patients on continuous cardiac monitoring (CCM) are admitted to the hospital. One is a 56-year-old man with hemodynamically stable sepsis secondary to pneumonia. There is no sign of arrhythmia on initial evaluation.
News
SHM Holding Roundtable for Hospitalist Practice Administrators
November 4, 2015
Are you a hospitalist practice administrator in a new role? SHM can help—and the upcoming roundtable discussion presented by Glenn Appelbaum, CHE, CPA, and Heather Fordyce, BS, on December 9 can help you find the resources to enable you to manage your practice effectively and efficiently.
News
Medicare’s Readmission Reduction Program Cuts $420M to U.S. Hospitals This Year
November 4, 2015
It’s that time of year again … the time when hospitals around the country are being notified of their 30-day readmission penalties from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
News
Which Hospitalist Should Bill for Inpatient Stays with Multiple Providers?
November 4, 2015
[caption id="attachment_8354" align="alignleft" width="100"] amane kaneko[/caption] During a facility stay, a patient could be attended to by more than one hospitalist.
News
Hospital Medicine Flourishing Around the World
November 4, 2015
Since last September, Anand Kartha, MD, MS, has headed the hospital medicine (HM) program at 600-bed Hamad General Hospital, the flagship facility for eight-hospital Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha, Qatar, a small nation of 1.8 million people located on the northeast corner of the Arabian Peninsul
News
Society of Hospital Medicine Launches Antimicrobial Stewardship Campaign
November 4, 2015
In 2006, infectious disease specialists and pharmacists at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore took a look at the pharmacy budget and were jarred by the numbers. “The proportion of the pharmacy budget that was antimicrobials was much larger than we would expect,” says Jonathan Zenil