Journal of general internal medicine
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Although experts recommend that healthcare organizations create forums for honest dialogue about race, there is little insight into the physician perspectives that may influence these conversations across the healthcare workforce. ⋯ Creating a healthcare work environment that successfully supports diversity is as important as recruiting diversity across the workforce. Developing constructive ways to discuss race and race relations among colleagues in the workplace is a key step towards creating a supportive environment for employees and patients from all backgrounds.
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Patient safety indicators (PSIs) are screening tools that use administrative data to identify potential complications of care and are being increasingly used as measures of hospital safety. It is unknown whether PSIs are related to standard quality metrics. ⋯ With the exception of failure to rescue, we found poor or inverse relationships between PSIs and other measures of healthcare quality. Whether the lack of relationship is due to the limitations of the PSIs is unknown, but suggests that PSIs need further validation before they are employed broadly.
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The risk of adverse events among alcohol-interactive medication users can occur with one standard alcoholic drink. Research on the extent to which this occurs is scant. ⋯ Combining alcohol and AI medications is a common phenomenon, and the risk of alcohol-related adverse drug events may be nontrivial. Screening for alcohol use before prescribing AI medications would be prudent. Better communication regarding the dangers of mixing alcohol with AI medications is warranted.
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Can primary care visits reduce hospital utilization among Medicare beneficiaries at the end of life?
Medical care at the end of life is often expensive and ineffective. ⋯ Primary care visits in the preceding year are associated with less, and less costly, end-of-life hospital utilization. Increased primary care access for Medicare beneficiaries may decrease costs and improve quality at the end of life.