Hospital Medicine

The hottest trend right now in mobile communications is location-based services on smartphones.

A recent study found that almost 95 percent of healthcare workers’ (HCW) mobile phones are contaminated with bacteria.

That’s the question Erik DeLue, MD, MBA, medical director of the hospitalist program at Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mt. Holly, NJ addresses in the February 2009 edition of Today’s Hospitalist.

As hospital medicine assumes greater prominence in the healthcare system, hospitalists will be asked to take on larger leadership roles.

A new study found that MRSA central line-associated blood stream infections occurring in intensive care unit patients has decreased by almost 50% between 1997 and 2007.

Radioimmunotherapy "holds promise for treating various infectious diseases, including HIV and cancers caused by viruses."

Reforming healthcare often took center stage during the presidential campaign. Having won the election, President Obama continues to tout healthcare reform as one of the top issues he wants addressed his first year in office.

As anyone who has lugged a notebook computer through an airport can attest, even today's sleekest machines feel heavy after a few hours.

One out of every seven patients admitted to the hospital experiences adverse drug reactions during treatment.

Two recent experiences inspired me to bring up the topic of gastroprophylaxis.

A new study found that a woman’s resting heart rate can be used as a factor in predicting coronary events.

A recent study found that only one-quarter of hospital patients are able to correctly identify their doctors and what roles the doctors had in their treatment.

Researchers at the University of Iowa have published the first study to document methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in swine and swine workers.

Researchers have recently determined two proteins or biomarkers "that occur when inflammation is present could help doctors identify which patients are more likely to have a stroke."

Richmond University Medical Center has established a new technique for heart attack patients that are brought into their emergency room: hypothermia treatment.

As baby boomers enter their golden years, they are facing a catch-22: while they can expect to live longer due to advances in medicine, they will also be facing situations where they will be unable to care for themselves.

Hospitalists have seen their responsibility grow exponentially, and this has translated into greater responsibility and decision making in all facets of hospital medicine.

The EMR has long promised a brave new world in which clinical information is synthesized, individualized, and seamlessly delivered to the frontline clinician.

Hospitals are increasingly using patient safety screening technology in the fight against hospital-acquired infections that kill thousands of patients and drive up the cost of care.

Alan L. Wang, MD, and Daniel Owens, MBA, discuss the unique characteristics of academic hospital medicine, the importance of healthcare information technology in providing quality care, and the promising future of Emory Hospital Medicine and the field of hospital medicine.

Last month, The Joint Commission, the nation’s primary standards-setting and accreditation organizations for hospitals, published a report detailing the issues that hospital leaders face today, as well as what issues they might need to plan for in the near future.

Tel Aviv University researchers recently announced that brushing the teeth of ventilated patients three times a day, even if the patients are unconscious, can significantly reduce the onset of pneumonia.

Aside from taking photos, capturing video, surfing the net, providing GPS navigation, and making phone calls, the iPhone is now primed to help hospitalists on their rounds.

Remember in the 1960s Star Trek series when Dr. McCoy would pass his medical tricorder over a prostrate body to discover not only which species of alien had invaded the young ensign, but also how to expel the creature with a dose of medicine?

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have reported that use of a new, hand-operated robotic device in combination with a functional MRI (fMRI) has shown that "chronic stroke patients can function normally again."

There is no doubt that prevention of VTE by use of thromboprophylaxis (medical or mechanical) has clear benefits in both acute and long-term morbidity and mortality.

Hospitalists can take a little pride in knowing that they are helping to deliver better patient outcomes and are practicing more efficiently than private practice physicians who are treating patients in hospitals.

Hospitalists who are assisting in preoperative and perioperative care need to consider the likelihood of delirium in patients, which can have an increased role in morbidity and mortality, according to Neil Winawer, MD, the director of the hospital medicine service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA.

Nebraska’s safe haven law was "intended to allow parents to hand over an infant anonymously to a hospital without being prosecuted." However, of the 34 children who have been dropped off since the law has been enacted, none have been an infant.

Being a relative newcomer to the field, I face new medical, ethical, technical situations on a daily basis, a reminder that learning does not end with medical school and residency.