Fighting the trust fall
Patients' trust in health care is down, but there are ways to combat that, including by being a little bit of a rebel.
A system for rounding
The proliferation of deterioration scores can help hospitalists organize their days, an expert explained.
Fixed-rate insulin for DKA tied to shorter length of stay, no change in time to resolution
After a hospital switched from a variable-rate insulin infusion protocol to a fixed-rate one, patients with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) had more hypoglycemia within the first 12 hours of treatment but no change in overall hypoglycemia risk, a single-center study found.
Apixaban superior to rivaroxaban, warfarin for preventing VTE recurrence
Patients who were prescribed apixaban after a venous thromboembolism (VTE) had lower rates of VTE recurrence and bleeding than those who took rivaroxaban or warfarin, according to a retrospective cohort study.
Rule using family info effective for finding pre-existing dementia in hospitalized patients
The informant-based Clinical Dementia Rating, administered within 48 hours of admission, had excellent accuracy for detecting dementia and cognitive impairment versus a gold standard diagnosis from blinded experts, according to a small Brazilian study of inpatients ages 65 years and older.
Private equity acquisition of hospitals linked with increased postop mortality risk
Medicare beneficiaries who underwent surgeries at hospitals acquired by private equity had a 42% increased risk of 30-day mortality compared with the preacquisition mortality rate, an analysis found.
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Save lives by treating substance use
Addiction experts offered strategies for starting medications for substance use disorders, specifically opioids and alcohol.
Be guarded about guardianship
A physician and a lawyer explain why it's important to search for alternatives to a court-appointed guardian for a patient.
AI-generated discharge summaries similar in quality to physician-written versions
Reviewers comparing discharge summaries for 100 patients that were generated by physicians or artificial intelligence (AI) did find more errors in the latter group, at a mean of 2.91 per summary versus 1.82.
Inequities in opioid prescribing for pain common among hospitalized patients
Patients from racial/ethnic minority groups received significantly fewer opioids for pain control than White patients, particularly if they had substance use disorders, a U.S. retrospective cohort study found.
Severe burnout affects 1 in 10 internal medicine physicians, survey finds
There was no difference in burnout prevalence based on facility type or between primary care physicians versus hospitalists. However, physicians in the Western part of the U.S. were significantly more likely to report burnout than those in other regions of the country.
Genomic surveillance system identified outbreaks, saved lives in a hospital trial
Over two years, weekly whole genome sequencing allowed a hospital's infection control team to identify 172 outbreaks, ranging in size from two to 16 patients, and prevent an estimated 62 infections and 4.8 deaths.
Understanding charity care
Regulators and researchers are taking a look at hospitals' charity care. Physicians might want to, too.
New FDA commissioner sworn in
The FDA approved fitusiran, a new treatment for hemophilia, and tenecteplase to treat ischemic stroke, among other recent actions.
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