Visual Analytics Dashboard Promises to Improve Hypertension Guideline Implementation.

Background: Primary care management of hypertension under new guidelines incorporates assessment of cardiovascular disease risk and commonly requires review of electronic health record (EHR) data. Visual analytics can streamline the review of complex data and may lessen the burden clinicians face using the EHR. This study sought to assess the utility of a visual analytics dashboard in addition to EHR in managing hypertension in a primary care setting.

Using a Frontline Staff Intervention to Improve Cervical Cancer Screening in a Large Academic Internal Medicine Clinic.

Background: Cervical cancer is the third most common malignancy affecting women. Screening with Papanicolaou (Pap) tests effectively identifies precancerous lesions and early-stage cervical cancer. While the nationwide rate of cervical cancer screening (CCS) is 84%, our urban general internal medicine (GIM) clinic population had a CCS rate of 70% in 2016.

The Applicability of New Orleans Criteria for Head Computed Tomography in Inpatient Falls With Injury.

Background: Inpatient falls are a patient safety concern. Limited data exist on the utility of head computed tomography (CT) for inpatient falls. The New Orleans Criteria (NOC) is a validated tool to determine the appropriateness of neuroimaging in the emergency department for falls with minor head injury.

Cross-Cover Documentation: Multicenter Development of Assessment Tool for Quality Improvement.

We aimed to develop an assessment tool to measure the quality of electronic health record inpatient documentation of cross-cover events. Cross-cover events occur in hospitalized patients when the primary team is absent. Documentation is critical for safe transitions of care.

Does Timing of Internal Medicine Residency Interview Affect Likelihood of Matching?

Objectives: Applicants to our internal medicine (IM) residency program consistently have shared concerns about whether the interview date influences their ability to match via the National Residency Matching Program. We performed a retrospective study to assess whether interview timing was associated with successful matching at our IM program.

Methods: We identified all of the applicants who interviewed for a first-year position with our IM residency program from 2010 to 2014.

Racial and Economic Disparities in Diabetes in a Large Primary Care Patient Population.

Objective: We sought to determine if, after adjusting for economic status, race is an independent risk factor for glycemic control among diabetic patients in a large primary care patient population.

Design Setting Participants: We performed a retrospective chart review of 264,000 primary care patients at our large, urban academic medical center to identify patients with a diagnosis of diabetes (n=25,123). Zip code was used to derive median income levels using US Census Bureau demographic information.