July 27, 2022
Use your window into heart failure
A new guideline and experts urge hospitalists to maximize heart failure therapies, but also to be aware of their costs.
Updating heart failure documentation
There are important differences between the 2021 universal definition of heart failure and ICD-10-CM terminology.
Alert decreased coagulation test orders during lab tube shortage, single-center study finds
A best practice advisory delivered through the electronic medical record during a national shortage of laboratory tubes was associated with an immediate decrease in orders for prothrombin time, international normalized ratio, and partial thromboplastin time.
Procalcitonin algorithm reduced antibiotic use in patients with acute pancreatitis
A randomized trial assigned some patients to a treatment strategy of starting, stopping, or continuing antibiotics based on whether their procalcitonin test value was more or less than 1.0 ng/mL.
Postop atrial fibrillation carries same stroke risk as other new-onset atrial fibrillation
Patients who first developed atrial fibrillation within 30 days of surgery were less likely to be prescribed an anticoagulant, despite similar risks of stroke and transient ischemic attack as other patients with atrial fibrillation, a study found.
Analysis shows good adherence to stroke guidelines in stroke registry hospitals
The Get With The Guidelines study did identify some areas of potential improvement in inpatient stroke care, including more dysphagia screening and use of high-intensity statin therapy.