Journal of hospital medicine : an official publication of the Society of Hospital Medicine
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With health care costs continuing to rise, a variety of process improvement methodologies have been proposed to address the reported inefficiencies in health care delivery. Lean production is one such method. The management philosophy and tools of lean production come from the manufacturing industry, where they were pioneered by Toyota Motor Corporation, which is viewed as the leader in utilizing these performance improvement methods. Lean has already enjoyed tremendous success in improving quality and efficiency in both the manufacturing and the service sector industries. ⋯ We conclude by discussing some of the potential challenges in introducing and implementing lean production methods in the health care environment. Lean production is a novel approach to delivering high-quality and efficient care to patients, and we believe that the health care sector can anticipate the same high level of success that the manufacturing and service industries have achieved using this approach. Hospitalists are primed to take action in delivering care of greater quality with more efficiency by applying these new principles in the hospital setting.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
If asked, hospitalized patients will choose whether to receive life-sustaining therapies.
No national policy requires health care providers to discuss with hospitalized patients whether the latter would want cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or mechanical ventilation (MV) in the event of cardiopulmonary failure. ⋯ Patients are willing to discuss and give informed consent for CPR and mechanical ventilation early in hospitalization. Only a minority drafted advance directives during hospitalization. Larger studies that include patients at other centers are required to determine whether these findings are reproducible and whether this approach is clinically feasible.
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Comparative Study
Impact of reliance on CT pulmonary angiography on diagnosis of pulmonary embolism: a Bayesian analysis.
Spiral computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA) has become the primary test used to investigate suspected pulmonary embolism (PE) at many institutions, despite uncertainty regarding its sensitivity and specificity. Although CTPA-based diagnostic algorithms focus on minimizing the false-negative rate, we hypothesized that increasing use of CTPA also might lead to false-positive diagnoses. ⋯ Failure to utilize Bayesian reasoning when interpreting CTPA may lead to false-positive diagnoses of pulmonary embolism in a substantial proportion of patients.
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Palliative care is medical care focused on the relief of suffering and support for the best possible quality of life for patients facing serious, life-threatening illness and their families. It aims to identify and address the physical, psychological, and practical burdens of illness. Palliative care may be delivered simultaneously with all appropriate curative and life-prolonging interventions. ⋯ The field of hospital palliative care has grown rapidly in recent years in response to patient need and clinician interest in effective approaches to managing chronic life-threatening illness. The growth in the number and needs of seriously and chronically ill patients who are not clearly terminally ill has led to the development of palliative care services outside the hospice benefit provided by Medicare (and other insurers). This article reviews the clinical, educational, demographic, and financial imperatives driving this growth, describes the clinical components of palliative care and the range of service models available, defines the relation of hospital-based palliative care to hospice, summarizes the literature on palliative care outcomes, and presents practical resources for clinicians seeking knowledge and skills in the field.
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Comparative Study
Hospital-acquired gastrointestinal bleeding outside the critical care unit: risk factors, role of acid suppression, and endoscopy findings.
Risk factors for hospital-acquired gastrointestinal bleeding in the intensive care unit are established, and acid-suppressive prophylaxis has been advocated for certain subsets of critically ill patients. In contrast, risk factors and appropriate prevention strategies are not yet established for general medical patients. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors for nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) in non-critically ill medical patients, to evaluate the utility of prophylactic gastric acid suppression, and to characterize the endoscopic lesions. ⋯ Hospital-acquired gastrointestinal bleeding is uncommon in non-critically ill patients. Anticoagulation appears to be the most important risk factor for nosocomial GIB. Routine use of acid suppressant medications for prophylaxis is unnecessary in most hospitalized patients.