Journal of hospital medicine : an official publication of the Society of Hospital Medicine
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Women continue to be underrepresented as speakers at national conferences, and research has shown similar trends in hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) Annual Meeting has historically had an open call peer review process for workshop speakers and, in 2019, expanded the process for didactic speakers. We aimed to assess the overall conference trends for women speakers and whether the systematic processes in recruitment procedures (ie, open call) resulted in improved representation of women speakers. ⋯ From 2015 to 2019, the overall representation of women speakers increased, as did evaluation scores during the same time period. When selection processes included the open call peer review process, there were higher proportions of women speakers. An open call process with peer review for speakers may be a systematic process that national meetings could replicate to reduce gender inequities.
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Readmissions after exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are penalized under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). Understanding attributable diagnoses at readmission would improve readmission reduction strategies. ⋯ Thirty-day readmissions following COPD exacerbations are common, and 55% of them are attributable to non-COPD diagnoses at the time of return. Higher burden of comorbidity is observed among non-COPD than COPD rehospitalizations. Readmission reduction efforts should focus intensively on factors beyond COPD disease management to reduce readmissions considerably by aggressively attempting to mitigate comorbid conditions.
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Surgical comanagement (SCM), in which surgeons and hospitalists share responsibility of care for surgical patients, has been increasingly utilized. In August 2012, we implemented SCM in Orthopedic and Neurosurgery services in which the same Internal Medicine hospitalists are dedicated year round to each of these surgical services to proactively prevent and manage medical conditions. ⋯ Since 2012, the odds of patients with ≥1 medical complication decreased by 3.8% per year (P = .01), the estimated length of stay decreased by 0.3 days per year (P < .0001), and the odds of rapid response team calls decreased by 12.2% per year (P = .001). Estimated average direct cost savings were $3,424 per discharge.