|
WEEKLY NEWS BRIEFS FOR HOSPITALISTS |
| PHYSICIAN RECRUITMENT
|
|
1. In-demand recruits: Hospitalists still make the top 5
|
| Merritt Hawkins has released its latest recruitment and compensation report on the most heavily recruited specialties, based on more than 3,100 search assignments in 2015. For the ninth straight year, family medicine was the No. 1 most frequent search, followed by internal medicine. Coming in at No. 3 (the slot hospital medicine filled in last year's Merritt Hawkins report) was psychiatry, followed by hospital medicine at No. 4 and nurse practitioners at No. 5. For hospitalists, the average income offered in 2015 searches was $232,000, with a low-high range of $170,000-$300,000. Among all searches, 84% included a relocation allowance and 73% offered a signing bonus. The average signing bonus offered to physicians was more than $26,000; that average for NPs/PAs was nearly $9,000. Among searches that included loan forgiveness, 79% were for three-year terms. Read more from Merritt Hawkins. |
|
| VTE |
|
2. Indefinite anticoagulation for unprovoked PE?
|
| Extended anticoagulation for patients after their first unprovoked PE leads to fewer recurrences, but only as long as therapy continues. That's according to a new study in which French researchers treated close to 400 patients with vitamin K antagonist for six months, then randomized those patients to either warfarin or placebo for 18 months. (The entire study with follow-up covered 42 months.) Patients in the warfarin group had significantly lower recurrent VTE or major/fatal bleeding while they were being treated (2.3 vs. 10.6 events per 100 person-years). But that benefit didn't continue once anticoagulation was stopped. The authors noted that their results suggest that patients need long-term treatment tailored to their individual risk factors. Read more in JAMA. |
|
| TELEMETRY USE |
| 3. Education (and money) drive down telemetry rates |
| An educational initiative coupled with financial incentives helped reduce hospitalists' use of telemetry, as well as length of stay and costs. Hospitalists at Stanford University launced several interventions to reduce telemetry rates: They used an educational module to teach trainees about telemetry use, discussed the need for telemetry on teaching rounds and received quarterly data on telemetry utilization. They were also offered a $2,000 bonus if the group reduced the use of telemetry beds. The interventions led to lower LOS for telemetry beds (2.13 days vs. 2.75 pre-intervention) and a 22.5% drop in telemetry bed costs. "Our study also revealed," the authors wrote, "that nearly half of participants were not aware of the criteria for appropriate utilization of telemetry before our intervention." Read more in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. |
|
| Would a new boss help diminish burnout? Take Today's Hospitalist's poll. |
| PNEUMONIA |
| 4. More CAP caused by viruses than bacteria? |
| A new CDC analysis of CAP hospitalizations finds that while a pathogen is identified in only a minority of cases, the culprit is more likely to be a virus than bacteria. Researchers looked at 2010-12 data on more than 2,000 patients hospitalized with CAP at five urban hospitals in Chicago and Nashville. While all patients had X-ray evidence of pneumonia, a pathogen was detected in only 38% of cases, with one or more viruses identified in 23% and bacteria in 11%. (Bacterial and viral pathogens were found in 3%, and mycobacterial or fungal pathogens in 1%.) The most common pathogens were rhinovirus (9%), influenza (6%) and S. pneumoniae (5%). The authors suggest that the reason why viruses were more common could be the effectiveness of pneumococcal vaccine. The study also found that CAP leads to hospitalization in 25 cases per 10,000 adults every year, with the highest rates among those 65 and older. Read more in NEJM. |
|
|
SURGICAL COMPLICATIONS
|
| 5. Surgeons get two new scorecards |
| Two new searchable scorecards are providing a very public view of surgeons and their complication rates. The first scorecard, created by investigative journalism group ProPublica, provides data on 2009-13 complication rates for close to 17,000 surgeons across 3,600 U.S. hospitals. (An accompanying article is here.) ProPublica's effort encompasses eight elective surgery categories (including knee/hip replacement) with results on all surgeons who performed 20 or more surgeries in each category, and it is searchable by name, hospital, city and state. Average complication rates were between 2% and 4%, although 11% of surgeons were behind 25% of all complications. The second scorecard is SurgeonRatings.org, produced by Checkbook.org, a rating service. This system looks at 15 types of surgeries for Medicare patients in 2009-12, but it lists only those surgeons whose rates of readmissions, 90-day mortality and same-stay complications are significantly above average. See more at ProPublica. |
|
| |
Massachusetts: Hospitalist Director, Academic Hospitalist & Nocturnist
VIEW ALL HOSPITALIST JOB OPENINGS |
| |
|
 |
|
