February 2011


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ACEing geriatric care

With their special focus, Acute Care for the Elderly (ACE) units have the potential to eliminate many of the issues that make hospitalization more difficult for elderly patients.

Publishing your QI project

How do you know if your quality improvement project is a candidate for publication?.

Diaries share, and help resolve, secrets of the ICU

Daily logs may help lower incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Handoff strategy cuts chitchat and confusion

The Mayo Clinic formed a team to address its main handoff problems: unpredictable schedules, inefficiency, poor communication and poor physical environment.

Careful catheter care reduces cost, complications

The U.S. spends an estimated $2 billion annually on treating catheter-associated bloodstream infections. Learn how to help lower those costs.

Letter from the Editor

This issue contains articles on optimizing geriatric care, publishing a quality improvement project and preventing catheter-associated infections, among others.

Safety first

I know I need to get up and get started, get my children ready for school. . .and I have an early morning meeting to which I just can't be late.

Hospital medicine in South America

A hospitalist-in-training reports from PASHA, the first congress of the Pan-American Society of Hospitalists, held in November in Brazil.

Urinary catheter-associated infections: Before or after admission?

Any infection related to a device or catheter of any type is classified for coding purposes as a complication of care.

Test yourself: Invasive procedures and complications

These cases and commentary, which address invasive procedures and complications, are excerpted from ACP's Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP15).

Hospital medicine precourse: From admission to discharge

This new course offers cutting-edge information on hospital medicine.

Hands-on workshops abound at Waxman Clinical Skills Center

Internal Medicine 2011 attendees can practice intubation and central line placement, among other procedures.

Journal watch: Recent studies of note

Hospitalists' cost-effectiveness, vasopressin antagonists and hyponatremia, and more.

In the News

Reporting impaired colleagues, updated guidelines on spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage, and more.