The Medical clinics of North America
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Although not suitable for every patient encounter, rounding at the beside provides an opportunity to teach and augment the attitudes essential for optimal medical care. It also provides an opportunity to establish and grow the team's culture as well as the culture for each patient encounter. Finally, it provides the attending physician with an opportunity to assess learners' position on the supervision-to-autonomy spectrum, thereby ensuring appropriate supervision while enabling the autonomy necessary for optimal learner growth.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Jul 2020
ReviewDiagnosis and Management of Opioid Use Disorder in Hospitalized Patients.
The diagnosis of opioid use disorder (OUD) is often overlooked or inadequately managed during the inpatient admission. When recognized, a common strategy is opioid detoxification, an approach that is often ineffective and can be potentially dangerous because of loss of tolerance and subsequent risk for overdose. Medication for addiction treatment (MAT), including methadone and buprenorphine, is effective and can be dispensed in the hospital for both opioid withdrawal and initiation of maintenance treatment. Hospitalists should be knowledgeable about diagnosing and managing patients with OUD, including how to manage acute pain or MAT during the perioperative setting.
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"Acute venous thromboembolism is a common disease seen by nearly all hospitalists. The advent of low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) several decades ago ushered in the era of early hospital discharge and home treatment. More recently, the direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have further simplified outpatient treatment and some offer treatment without parenteral therapy. Use of DOACs for cancer-associated venous thromboembolism is emerging and is a welcome evolution of care to spare oncologic patients the burden of daily LMWH injections."
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Teamwork is essential to providing high-quality patient care. Hospital settings pose important challenges to teamwork. Measurement is key to understanding baseline performance and assessing whether teamwork is improving. The authors recommend a multifaceted approach, using a combination of complementary interventions with an ultimate goal that improved teamwork translates into improved patient outcomes.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Jul 2020
ReviewCatheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection, Clostridioides difficile Colitis, Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection, and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Hospital-acquired infections increase cost, morbidity, and mortality for patients across the United States and the world. Principal among these infections are central line-associated bloodstream infection, catheter-associated urinary tract infection, Clostridioides difficile, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization and infections. This article provides succinct summaries of the background, epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of these conditions. In addition, novel prevention strategies, including those related to recent national interventions, are reviewed.