- Current Issue
- ACP Hospitalist Weekly
- Supplements
- Blog
- Archives
- Career Connection
- Subscribe to RSS Feeds
March 2009
Featured Articles
Surgical comanagement done right
Make a difference without catching the scut
With no clear definition of surgical comanagement, it's no wonder that hospitalists disagree on which patients should be comanaged, how arrangements should be structured, and whether the whole movement toward comanagement is a boon or bane for hospitalists and their patients. Our cover story examines the concept and offers tips on making comanagement work for your group.
Patient Safety
Creating a better discharge summary
Is standardization the answer?
The discharge summary is a vital tool for transferring information between the hospitalist and primary care physician, but it isn’t always given the priority it deserves.
Physician Profile
Former baseball coach hits home run in hospital medicine
Mike Hawkins, FACP, champions the hospitalist model.
Success Story
Hospitalist-led initiative reduces ambulance diversion, improves ED throughput
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center gets results
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore recently introduced a hospitalist-led bed management program in a successful attempt to improve emergency department wait times and decrease ambulance diversion hours. Find out how they did it.
Mindful Medicine
Melding intuition with deliberation to sidestep diagnostic traps
Would you pass "the eyeball test" if the patient in this case study presented in your hospital's emergency department? Find out how one physician pressed for a better answer on a patient who presented with cardiac pain but no evidence of a heart attack.
Perspectives
Letter from the Editor
Most hospitalists comanage surgical patients as part of their day-to-day responsibilities, but the hows, whens and whys of a comanagement relationship can vary from hospital to hospital and even from physician to physician.
Letter to the Editor
Defining urosepsis
Q&A
Preventing heart disease by targeting patients' loved ones
Lori Mosca, ACP Member, explains how hospitalists can help reduce risk that runs in the family.
Newman’s Notions
Work hour limits: No gain without pain
Nobody would want their child riding on an icy road at 70 miles per hour in a school bus driven by someone whose head keeps nodding. Similarly, who would want to be cared for by a physician who is so fatigued he can’t remember the difference between the cranium and the cremaster?
Your Practice
Coding Corner
Insufficient insufficiency
Physicians often use the term renal insufficiency to communicate the status of a patient’s renal function, but this isn't enough when the medical record supports a more specific condition.
Quality Corner
Measure of the month: Stroke and stroke rehabilitation
In accordance with a law passed by Congress late in 2006, physicians and other eligible professionals are able to receive bonus payments of a percentage (increased to 2%) of their total allowed Medicare charges, subject to a cap, by submitting information for defined quality measures.
Clinical Medicine
Conference Preview
Internal Medicine 2009 sessions combine new offerings with old favorites
Internal Medicine 2009 will offer a blend of the new and the established in its courses and activities.
Test yourself: Endocrinology
From MKSAP
The following cases and commentary, which address endocrinology, are excerpted from ACP’s Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP14).FDA Update
Topical anesthetic reminder, fibromyalgia drug approved
Research News
Journal watch: Recent studies of note
In the News
Medicare's proposal to expand coverage for PET scans, and other medical updates.
National Trends
Anti-smoking efforts graded state-by-state
The American Lung Association State of Tobacco Control 2008 report graded the 50 states and District of Columbia on their anti-smoking efforts.
Acrobat PDF format.
Download Acrobat Reader
software for free from Adobe.
Problems with PDFs?
Hospitalist Archives
Quick Links
ACP Hospitalist Weekly
From the March 10, 2009 edition
- Current, validated med lists reduce errors on hospital admission
- Use of probiotics helps lower ventilator-associated pneumonia rates
Cartoon Caption Contest
ACP HospitalistWeekly wants readers to create captions for this cartoon and help choose the winner. Pen the winning caption and win a $50 gift certificate good toward any ACP product, program or service.

ACP Career Connection
Looking for a new hospitalist position?
ACP Career Connection can help you find your next job in hospital medicine. Search hospitalist positions nationwide that suit your criteria and preferences. Jobs are posted about two weeks before print publication of Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP Internist, and ACP Hospitalist. Exclusive “Online Direct” opportunities are updated weekly. Check us out online.
New ACP Online Clinical Information Page
Sneak a peek at ACPs new and improved Clinical Information page! Test drive the beta version of our redesigned Clinical Information landing page, give us your feedback, and help us make it as easy to use as possible.
Your Opinion Counts
Twice a year, ACP participates in a journal readership survey of random internists. If you receive one of these surveys in the mail, please indicate if you read our journals and answer the questions about your reading habits of our journals.
Your voice in these surveys is very important to ACP and enables us to continue to produce the high-quality publications that you expect. Find out more.