Hospital Rating Organizations' Quality and Patient Safety Scores: Analysis of Result Discrepancies.

BACKGROUND: In the USA, multiple organizations rate hospitals based on quality and patient safety data, but few studies have analyzed and compared the rating results. OBJECTIVE: Compare the results of different US hospital-rating organizations. DESIGN: Observational data analysis of US acute care hospital ratings. PARTICIPANTS: Four rating organizations: Hospital Compare® (HC), Healthgrades® (HG), The Leapfrog Group® (Leapfrog), and US News and World Report® (USN). MAIN MEASURES: We analyzed the level of concordance (similar ranking), discordance (difference of 1 or more rankings), and severe discordance (difference of two or more rankings), as well as differences and correlations between the scores. KEY RESULTS: From Feb 1 to Oct 3, 2023, we analyzed data from 2,384 hospitals. In Leapfrog, there were 688 hospitals (29%) with Grade A, 652 (27.3%) with B, 885 (37.1%) with C, 153 (6.4%) with D, and 6 (0.3%) with F. For HC, 333 hospitals (14%) had five stars, 676 (28.4%) four, 695 (29.2%) three, 502 (21.4%) two, and 171 (7.2%) one-star. In ratings between HC and Leapfrog, discordance was 70%, and severe discordance was 25.1%. USN ranked 469 hospitals (19.7%). Within the USN-ranked hospital group, there was a 62% discordance and 19.8% severe discordance between HC and Leapfrog. The analysis of orthopedic procedures from HG and USN showed discordance ranging from 48 to 61.2%. CONCLUSION: The rating organizations' reported metrics were highly discordant. A hospital's ranking by one organization frequently did not correspond to a similar ranking by another. The methodology and included timeline and patient population can help explain the differences. However, the discordant ratings may confuse patients and customers.

Characterizing electronic messaging use among hospitalists and its association with patient volumes.

BACKGROUND: Secure electronic messaging is increasingly being utilized for communications in healthcare settings. While it likely increases efficiency, it has also been associated with interruptions, high message volumes, and risk of errors due to multitasking. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to characterize patterns of secure messaging among hospitalists to understand the volume of messages, message patterns, and impact on hospitalist workload. METHODS: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of Epic Secure Chat secure electronic messages received and sent by hospitalists from April 1 to April 30, 2023 at a large academic medical center. Number of conversations per day, number of chats sent and accessed per hour, and average minutes between when a chat was sent and accessed (lag time) were analyzed using a Pearson correlation coefficient test. Measures were plotted against patient volume and time of day. RESULTS: Hospitalists sent or received an average of 130 messages per day with an average of 13 messages sent or received per hour. The median lag time was 39 s. There was a statistically significant correlation between hospital medicine morning census and number of conversations per day, number of chats sent per hour, and number of chats accessed per hour, but census did not impact lag time. CONCLUSION: Secure messaging volumes may be higher than previously reported, which may affect hospitalist workload and workflow and have unintended effects on interruptions, multitasking, and medical errors. Additional work should be done to better understand local messaging patterns and opportunities to optimize volume of work and distractions.

Language Matters: Is There Gender Bias in Internal Medicine Grand Rounds Introductions?

PURPOSE:  We performed an exploratory evaluation of gender-specific differences in speakers and their introductions at internal medicine grand rounds. METHOD:  Internal medicine grand rounds video archives from three sites between December 2013 and September 2020 were manually transcribed and analyzed using natural language processing techniques. Differences in word usage by gender were compared. RESULTS:  Four hundred and sixty-two grand rounds held at three institutions were examined. There were 167 (34.6%) speakers who were women and 316 (65.4%) who were men. The proportion of women speakers was significantly lower than that of women in the internal medicine workforce (34.6% vs. 39.2%, p = 0.04). Among 191 external speakers, only 57 (29.8%) were women. The use of professional titles was equivalent between genders. Despite equal mention of specific achievements in both male and female speaker introductions, there was a trend toward casting female speakers as being less established. CONCLUSION:  There is a need to adopt processes that will decrease inequities in the representation of women in grand rounds and in their introductions.

Identifying and Measuring Administrative Harms Experienced by Hospitalists and Administrative Leaders.

Importance: Administrative harm (AH), defined as the adverse consequences of administrative decisions within health care that impact work structure, processes, and programs, is pervasive in medicine, yet poorly understood and described. Objective: To explore common AHs experienced by hospitalist clinicians and administrative leaders, understand the challenges that exist in identifying and measuring AH, and identify potential approaches to mitigate AH. Design, Setting, and Participants: A qualitative study using a mixed-methods approach with a 12-question survey and semistructured virtual focus groups was held on June 13 and August 11, 2023. Rapid qualitative methods including templated summaries and matrix analysis were applied. The participants included 2 consortiums comprising hospitalist clinicians, researchers, administrative leaders, and members of a patient and family advisory council. Main Outcomes and Measures: Quantitative data from the survey on specific aspects of experiences related to AH were collected. Focus groups were conducted using a semistructured focus group guide. Themes and subthemes were identified. Results: Forty-one individuals from 32 different organizations participated in the focus groups, with 32 participants (78%) responding to a brief survey. Survey participants included physicians (91%), administrative professionals (6%), an advanced practice clinician (3%), and those in leadership roles (44%), with participants able to select more than one role. Only 6% of participants were familiar with the term administrative harm to a great extent, 100% felt that collaboration between administrators and clinicians is crucial for reducing AH, and 81% had personally participated in a decision that led to AH to some degree. Three main themes were identified: (1) AH is pervasive and comes from all levels of leadership, and the phenomenon was felt to be widespread and arose from multiple sources within health care systems; (2) organizations lack mechanisms for identification, measurement, and feedback, and these challenges stem from a lack of psychological safety, workplace cultures, and ambiguity in who owns a decision; and (3) organizational pressures were recognized as contributors to AHs. Many ideas were proposed as solutions. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this study suggest that AH is widespread with wide-reaching impact, yet organizations do not have mechanisms to identify or address it.

Attention Among Health Care Professionals : A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: The concept of attention can provide insight into the needs of clinicians and how health systems design can impact patient care quality and medical errors. PURPOSE: To conduct a scoping review to 1) identify and characterize literature relevant to clinician attention; 2) compile metrics used to measure attention; and 3) create a framework of key concepts. DATA SOURCES: Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline (PubMed), and Embase (Ovid) from 2001 to 26 February 2024. STUDY SELECTION: English-language studies addressing health care worker attention in patient care. At least dual review and data abstraction. DATA EXTRACTION: Article information, health care professional studied, practice environment, study design and intent, factor type related to attention, and metrics of attention used. DATA SYNTHESIS: Of 6448 screened articles, 585 met inclusion criteria. Most studies were descriptive (n = 469) versus investigational (n = 116). More studies focused on barriers to attention (n = 387; 342 descriptive and 45 investigational) versus facilitators to improving attention (n = 198; 112 descriptive and 86 investigational). We developed a framework, grouping studies into 6 categories: 1) definitions of attention, 2) the clinical environment and its effect on attention, 3) personal factors affecting attention, 4) relationships between interventions or factors that affect attention and patient outcomes, 5) the effect of clinical alarms and alarm fatigue on attention, and 6) health information technology's effect on attention. Eighty-two metrics were used to measure attention. LIMITATIONS: Does not synthesize answers to specific questions. Quality of studies was not assessed. CONCLUSION: This overview may be a resource for researchers, quality improvement experts, and health system leaders to improve clinical environments. Future systematic reviews may synthesize evidence on metrics to measure attention and on the effectiveness of barriers or facilitators related to attention. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: None.

Breaking barriers, building faculty: A qualitative analysis to exploring faculty development in academic hospital medicine.

BACKGROUND: Hospital medicine (HM) continues to be primarily composed of junior hospitalists and research has highlighted a paucity of mentors and academic output. Faculty advancement programs have been identified as a means to support junior hospitalists in their career trajectories and to advance the field. The optimal approach to supporting faculty development (FD) efforts is not known. OBJECTIVE: To understand hospitalist groups' approaches to FD, including efforts that were perceived to be effective, and to identify barriers as well as potential future directions for FD. DESIGN: Rapid qualitative methods were utilized including templated summaries and matrix analysis to identify major themes. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Virtual focus groups with hospitalists in the Hospital Medicine Reengineering Network (HOMERuN). MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Qualitative themes RESULTS: Nineteen individuals from 17 unique institutions from across the United States in May 2022 participated in seven focus groups. Four key themes emerged from the study and included (1) academic hospitalist programs face multifaceted challenges and barriers to FD in HM, (2) groups have embraced a diversity of structures and frameworks, (3) due to clinical volumes, FD programs have had to adapt and evolve to meet FD needs, and (4) participants identified multiple areas for improvement, including defining tangible outcomes of FD programs and creating a repository of FD material which can be shared widely.

The development and pilot of a novel mobile application to assess clinician perception of workload and work environment.

BACKGROUND: Traditional measures of workload such as wRVUs may not be adequate to understand the impact of workload on key outcomes. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to develop a mobile application to assess, in near real time, clinicians' perception of workload and work environment. DESIGNS, SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: We developed the GrittyWork™ application (GW App) using the Chokshi and Mann process model for user-centered digital development. Study occured at a single academic medical center with hospitalist clinicians. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES AND MEASURES: Measures included the System Usability Scale (SUS), use measures from GW App, electronic health record (EHR) event log data and note counts, and qualitative interviews. RESULTS: From October 28, 2022 to November 3, 2022, six hospitalist clinicians provided feedback on the early prototype of the GW App, and from February 28, 2023 to June 8, 2023, 30 hospitalist clinicians participated in the pilot while on clinical service. All 30 clinicians (100%) participated in the pilot submitting data for a total of 122 shifts. Participants reported working 10 ± 1 h per day (mean ± SD) and were responsible for an average of 11 ± 3 patients per day. The postpilot evaluation of the GW App showed a SUS score of 86 ± 11 and a participant preference toward mobile application-based surveys (73% of participants). Regarding workload measures, EHR event log data and notes data correlated with physician-reported workloads. Applying user-centered design techniques, we successfully developed a mobile application with high usability. These data can be paired with EHR event log data and outcomes to provide insights into the impact of workloads and work environments on outcomes.

Impact of billing reforms on academic hospitalist physician and advanced practice provider collaboration: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Medicare previously announced plans for new billing reforms for inpatient visits that are shared by physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs) whereby the clinician spending the most time on the patient visit would bill for the visit. OBJECTIVE: To understand how inpatient hospital medicine teams utilize APPs in patient care and how the proposed billing policies might impact future APP utilization. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: We conducted focus groups with hospitalist physicians, APPs, and other leaders from 21 academic hospitals across the United States. Utilizing rapid qualitative methods, focus groups were analyzed using a mixed inductive and deductive method at the semantic level with templated summaries and matrix analysis. Thirty-three individuals (physicians [n = 21], APPs [n = 10], practice manager [n = 1], and patient representative [n = 1]) participated in six focus groups. RESULTS: Four themes emerged from the analysis of the focus groups, including: (1) staffing models with APPs are rapidly evolving, (2) these changes were felt to be driven by staffing shortages, financial models, and governance with minimal consideration to teamwork and relationships, (3) time-based billing was perceived to value tasks over cognitive workload, and (4) that the proposed billing changes may create unintended consequences impacting collaboration and professional satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: Physician and APP collaborative care models are increasingly evolving to independent visits often driven by workloads, financial drivers, and local regulations such as medical staff rules and hospital bylaws. Understanding which staffing models produce optimal patient, clinician, and organizational outcomes should inform billing policies rather than the reverse.

Virtual hospital care development and deployment: A rapid qualitative study of frontline clinicians and leaders.

BACKGROUND: Virtual hospitalist programs are rapidly growing in popularity due to worsening clinician shortages and increased pressure for flexible work options. These programs also have the potential to establish sustainable staffing models across multiple hospitals optimizing cost. We aimed to explore the current state of virtual hospitalist services at various health systems, challenges and opportunities that exist in providing virtual care, and future opportunities for these types of services. OBJECTIVES: To identify perspectives on design and implementation of virtual hospitalist programs from academic hospitalist leaders. METHODS: We conducted focus groups with United States academic hospitalist leaders. Semistructured interviews explored experiences with virtual hospitalist programs. Using rapid qualitative methods including templated summaries and matrix analysis, focus group recordings were analyzed to identify key themes. RESULTS: We conducted four focus groups with 13 participants representing nine hospital systems across six geographic regions and range of experience with virtual hospital medicine care. Thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) a broad spectrum of virtual care delivery; (2) adoption and acceptance of virtual care models followed the stages of diffusion of innovation; and (3) sustainability and scalability of programs were affected by unclear finances. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalist leader perspectives revealed complex factors influencing virtual care adoption and implementation. Addressing concerns about care quality, financing, and training may accelerate adoption. Further research should clarify the best practices for sustainable models optimized for access, hospitalist experience, patient safety, and financial viability.

Hospitalist Shared Leadership for Safety, Health, and Well-Being at Work: United States, 2022‒2023.

We assessed how hospitalists frame workplace safety, health, and well-being (SHW); their perception of hospital supports for SHW; and whether and how they are sharing leadership responsibility for each other's SHW. Our findings highlight the important role of local support for hospitalist SHW and reveal the systemic, hospital-wide problems that may impede their SHW. We believe that positioning hospitalists as leaders for SHW will result in systems-wide changes in practices to support the SHW of all care team members. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S2):S162-S166. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307573).

Communicating Patient Discharge Readiness: An Implementation Evaluation in an Inpatient Hospital Medicine Setting.

BACKGROUND: The progression of patients through a hospital from admission to discharge can be slowed by delays in patient discharge, increasing pressure on health care staff. We designed and piloted the Discharge Today tool, with the goal of improving the efficiency of patient discharge; however, adoption remained low. PURPOSE: To close this implementation gap, we deployed and evaluated a 4-part implementation strategy bundle. METHODS: We measured the success of implementation by evaluating validated implementation outcomes using both quantitative and qualitative methods, grounded in Normalization Process Theory. RESULTS: The implementation strategies used were effective for increasing use of the Discharge Today tool by hospital medicine physicians and advanced practice providers during both the active and passive implementation periods. CONCLUSIONS: While the implementation strategies used were effective, qualitative findings indicate that limitations in the functionality of the tool, alongside inconsistent use of the tool across clinical staff, continued to inhibit adoption.

Impact of Clinical Demands on the Educational Mission in Hospital Medicine at 17 Academic Medical Centers : A Qualitative Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Clinical growth is outpacing the growth of traditional educational opportunities at academic medical centers (AMCs). OBJECTIVE: To understand the impact of clinical growth on the educational mission for academic hospitalists. DESIGN: Qualitative study using semistructured interviews that were analyzed using a mixed inductive and deductive method at the semantic level. SETTING: Large AMCs across the United States that experienced clinical growth in the past 5 years. PARTICIPANTS: Division heads, section heads, and other hospital medicine (HM) leaders who oversaw and guided academic and clinical efforts of HM programs. MEASUREMENTS: Themes and subthemes. RESULTS: From September 2021 to January 2022, HM leaders from 17 AMCs participated in the interviews, and 3 key themes emerged. First, AMCs' disproportionate clinical growth highlighted the tension between clinical and educational missions. This included a mismatch in supply and demand for traditional teaching time, competing priorities, and clinical growth being seen as both an opportunity and a threat. Second, amid the shifting landscape of high clinical demands and evolving educational opportunities, hospitalists still strongly prefer traditional teaching. To address this mismatch, HM groups have had to alter recruitment strategies and create innovative solutions to help build academic careers. Third, participants noted a need to reimagine the role and identity of an academic hospitalist, emphasizing tailored career pathways and educational roles spanning well beyond traditional house staff teaching teams. LIMITATION: The study focused on large AMCs. CONCLUSION: Although HM groups have implemented many creative strategies to address clinical growth and keep education front and center, challenges remain, particularly heavy clinical workloads and a continued dilution of traditional teaching opportunities. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: Society of Hospital Medicine Student Scholar Grant.

Achieving diagnostic excellence through prevention and teamwork (ADEPT) study protocol: A multicenter, prospective quality and safety program to improve diagnostic processes in medical inpatients.

BACKGROUND: Few hospitals have built surveillance for diagnostic errors into usual care or used comparative quantitative and qualitative data to understand their diagnostic processes and implement interventions designed to reduce these errors. OBJECTIVES: To build surveillance for diagnostic errors into usual care, benchmark diagnostic performance across sites, pilot test interventions, and evaluate the program's impact on diagnostic error rates. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Achieving diagnostic excellence through prevention and teamwork (ADEPT) is a multicenter, real-world quality and safety program utilizing interrupted time-series techniques to evaluate outcomes. Study subjects will be a randomly sampled population of medical patients hospitalized at 16 US hospitals who died, were transferred to intensive care, or had a rapid response during the hospitalization. Surveillance for diagnostic errors will occur on 10 events per month per site using a previously established two-person adjudication process. Concurrent reviews of patients who had a qualifying event in the previous week will allow for surveys of clinicians to better understand contributors to diagnostic error, or conversely, examples of diagnostic excellence, which cannot be gleaned from medical record review alone. With guidance from national experts in quality and safety, sites will report and benchmark diagnostic error rates, share lessons regarding underlying causes, and design, implement, and pilot test interventions using both Safety I and Safety II approaches aimed at patients, providers, and health systems. Safety II approaches will focus on cases where diagnostic error did not occur, applying theories of how people and systems are able to succeed under varying conditions. The primary outcome will be the number of diagnostic errors per patient, using segmented multivariable regression to evaluate change in y-intercept and change in slope after initiation of the program. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has been approved by the University of California, San Francisco Institutional Review Board (IRB), which is serving as the single IRB. Intervention toolkits and study findings will be disseminated through partners including Vizient, The Joint Commission, and Press-Ganey, and through national meetings, scientific journals, and publications aimed at the general public.

Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Women Hospitalists: A Mixed-Gender Qualitative Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Women physicians have faced persistent challenges, including gender bias, salary inequities, a disproportionate share of caregiving and domestic responsibilities, and limited representation in leadership. Data indicate the COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted and exacerbated these inequities. OBJECTIVE: To understand the pandemic's impact on women physicians and to brainstorm solutions to better support women physicians. DESIGN: Mixed-gender semi-structured focus groups. PARTICIPANTS: Hospitalists in the Hospital Medicine Reengineering Network (HOMERuN). APPROACH: Six semi-structured virtual focus groups were held with 22 individuals from 13 institutions comprised primarily of academic hospitalist physicians. Rapid qualitative methods including templated summaries and matrix analysis were applied to identify major themes and subthemes. KEY RESULTS: Four key themes emerged: (1) the pandemic exacerbated perceived gender inequities, (2) women's academic productivity and career development were negatively impacted, (3) women held disproportionate roles as caregivers and household managers, and (4) institutional pandemic responses were often misaligned with workforce needs, especially those of women hospitalists. Multiple interventions were proposed including: creating targeted workforce solutions and benefits to address the disproportionate caregiving burden placed on women, addressing hospitalist scheduling and leave practices, ensuring promotion pathways value clinical and COVID-19 contributions, creating transparency around salary and non-clinical time allocation, and ensuring women are better represented in leadership roles. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalists perceived and experienced that women physicians faced negative impacts from the pandemic in multiple domains including leadership opportunities and scholarship, while also shouldering larger caregiving duties than men. There are many opportunities to improve workplace conditions for women; however, current institutional efforts were perceived as misaligned to actual needs. Thus, policy and programmatic changes, such as those proposed by this cohort of hospitalists, are needed to advance equity in the workplace.