Category: Hospital Medicine
IHQI Announces Improvement Scholars, Three From the Department of Medicine
Jaydeep Lamba, MD, Hillary Spangler, MD, and Claire West, MD The UNC Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement has announced new projects that will be supported through the IHQI’s Improvement Scholars Program from Sep 1, 2021 – Aug 31, 2022. Congratulations to the following selected project leads from the Department of Medicine. Jaydeep Lamba, MD and Hillary Spangler, MD, div … Read more
Study Suggests Opportunities to Reduce Laboratory Overuse Across Conditions and Children’s Hospitals
John R. Stephens, MD John R. Stephens, MD, professor of medicine and pediatrics, in the division of hospital medicine, published “Outcomes Associated With High-Versus Low-Frequency Laboratory Testing Among Hospitalized Children” in Hospital Pediatrics. Previous pediatric studies have revealed substantial variation in laboratory testing for specific conditions, but clinical outcom … Read more
Spontaneous Pneumomediastinum in a Patient with COVID-19 Pneumonia
Naseem Alavian, MD Naseem Alavian, MD, MPH, is lead author for a case study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The article recognizes that spontaneous pneumomediastinum can occur in COVID-19 pneumonia in the absence of traditional risk factors, such as smoking, parenchymal lung disease, intubation, or positive pressure ventilation. Other authors include John S … Read more
Hospital Medicine Contributes to SHM Annual Meeting
Hillary Spangler, MD, presented lessons learned from UNC’s Medicine Procedure Service. Faculty from the division of hospital medicine were well represented at the recent Society of Hospital Medicine’s Annual Meeting. Ria Dancel, MD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics, was invited to participate in a debate about the growth of virtual medicine technology, and whether t … Read more
UNC’s Medicine Procedure Service, Implementation and Five-Year Experience Study
L-R: Hillary Spangler, MD, John Stephens, MD, Emily Sturkie, MD, and Ria Dancel, MD. Med-peds resident, Hillary Spangler, MD, and hospitalists, John Stephens, MD, Emily Sturkie, MD, and Ria Dancel, MD, published “Implementation of an academic hospital medicine procedure service: 5-year experience” in Hospital Practice. Procedural complications are a common source of adverse event … Read more
Study Highlights Need For More QI Efforts to Reduce Unnecessary Blood Cultures in Routine SSTI Cases
Emily Sturkie, MD Physician researchers in the division of hospital medicine and the division of infectious diseases collaborated for the study “Frequency and yield of blood cultures for observation patients with skin and soft tissue infections,” published this month in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. The study was designed to measure frequency and yield of blood cult … Read more
Hospitalists Study Prognostic Value of Labs Ordered For Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19
Naseem Alavian, MD, and Elizabeth Stern, MD Faculty physicians in the division of hospital medicine have assumed most non-intensive care unit care for the coronavirus. Based on sparse research, they developed a protocol for ordering labs for this patient population, including routine admission labs, in addition to eight COVID-19 specific labs. The goal of their recent study, publ … Read more
Hospitalist Quality Improvement Study Featured in ACP Hospitalist
John R. Stephens, MD The article “Helping Hip Fracture Patients” published in ACP Hospitalist this month features a UNC retrospective study led by John R. Stephens, MD. The study found that patients admitted to the hospitalist service had shorter lengths of stays and a lower risk of 30-day readmission compared with patients admitted to orthopedics or other services. Read the arti … Read more
Featured Physician: Rimma Osipov, MD, PhD
Dr. Osipov says the most rewarding part of her work is the time she spends with patients. She also says new understandings about obesity and diabetes are exciting. “We are moving beyond seeing these conditions as individual moral failings and realizing that they are imbedded in every aspect of life, from the molecular to the cellular to the systemic and the social,” she said.
Fracture Liaison Service Narrows Gap in Osteoporosis Treatment
John R. Stephens, MD Hip fracture is a common and morbid condition, and prior studies have shown that the majority of patients with fragility fracture are not treated for underlying osteoporosis. A pre-post study led by John R. Stephens, MD, professor of medicine and pediatrics in the division of hospital medicine, was designed to improve care for patients with acute hip fractur … Read more
Moore Appointed Associate Director of UNC IHQI
Carlton Moore, MD, MS Carlton Moore, MD, MS, has been appointed associate director of UNC’s Institute for Health and Quality Improvement (IHQI), and is professor of medicine in the division of hospital medicine and associate chief for research and quality improvement. Lavinia Kolarczyk, MD, has also been appointed associate director. She is associate professor of anesthesiology a … Read more
McEntee, Henderson Introduce New COVID-19 Elective For Internal Medicine Residents
Residents will follow proper PPE donning and doffing requirements. By the middle of March, 2020, COVID-19 had upended the traditional training experience in the UNC Internal Medicine Residency Program. Didactic coursework and clinical skills training had to be quickly converted to an online format and clinical rotations were suspended as decisions were quickly made to ensure resi … Read more