Published in the September 2009 issue of Today’s Hospitalist
FOR HOSPITALISTS looking to sharpen their clinical and practice management skills, this fall offers several continuing medical education meetings geared to hospital medicine. Here’s a look at what’s available:
Management of the Hospitalized Patient
Sept. 24-26, 2009, San Francisco
Hosted by the University of California, San Francisco
Information: www.cme.ucsf.edu, 415-476-5808
5th Annual Midwestern Hospital Medicine Conference
Oct. 1-3, 2009, Chicago
Hosted by Northwestern University
Information: www.cme.northwestern.edu/conferences, 312-503-8533
4th Annual Frontiers in Pediatric Hospital Medicine Conference
Oct. 8-9, 2009, San Francisco
Hosted by California Pacific Medical Center
Information: www.cpmc.org/advanced/pediatrics/news/Ped_07HospSymp.html, 415-600-6484
10th Annual Southern Hospital Medicine Conference
Oct. 15-17, 2009, New Orleans
Hosted by Ochsner Health System and Emory University School of Medicine
Information: www.ochsner.org/cme, 800-778-9353
Missing information on pending tests still leads to fumbled handoffs
A NEW RETROSPECTIVE STUDY finds that physicians still have a long way to go to improve the accuracy of discharge information, particularly when it comes to pending test results for discharged patients.
The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, examined more than 650 hospital discharges in which all the patients left the hospital with pending test results.
Among the findings:
- Only 16% of the more than 2,900 tests with pending results were mentioned in the discharge summary.
- Only 67% of discharge summaries indicated which primary care physician was responsible for following up with that patient after discharge.
- 72% of test results that retrospectively were found to require treatment changes were not mentioned in discharge summaries.
