Using implementation science to encourage Serious Illness Conversations on general medicine inpatient services: An interrupted time series.

Background: Serious Illness Conversations (SICs) are not consistently integrated into existing inpatient workflows.

Objective: We assessed the implementation of multiple interventions aimed at encouraging SICs with hospitalized patients.

Methods: We used the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to identify determinants for conducting SICs by interviewing providers and the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change to develop a list of interventions.

A Mixed Methods Analysis of Standardized Documentation of Serious Illness Conversations Within an Electronic Health Record Module During Hospitalization.

Background: Analysis of documented Serious Illness Conversations (SICs) in the inpatient setting can help clinicians align management to address patient and caregiver needs.

Methods: We conducted a mixed methods analysis of the first instance of standardized documentation of a SIC within a structured module among hospitalized general medicine patients from 2018 to 2019. Percentage of documentations that included a description of patient or family understanding of the patient's medical condition and use of radio buttons to answer the "prognostic information shared," "hopes," and "worries" modules are reported.

Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists in the Treatment of Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathy: From Mechanisms of Action to Clinical Applications.

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) result in proximal muscle weakness and other intramuscular and extramuscular manifestations. Pharmacologic treatments in use for IIMs are limited to corticosteroids and immunosuppressants in addition to supportive physical and occupational therapy. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists are currently utilized in the treatment of type II diabetes and obesity but may play a role in the treatment of IIMs.

The Association of Standardized Documentation of Serious Illness Conversations With Healthcare Utilization in Hospitalized Patients: A Propensity Score Matched Cohort Analysis.

Serious Illness Conversations (SICs) conducted during hospitalization can lead to meaningful patient participation in the decision-making process affecting medical management. The aim of this study is to determine if standardized documentation of a SIC within an institutionally approved EHR module during hospitalization is associated with palliative care consultation, change in code status, hospice enrollment prior to discharge, and 90-day readmissions. We conducted retrospective analyses of hospital encounters of general medicine patients at a community teaching hospital affiliated with an academic medical center from October 2018 to August 2019.

Who Gets (and Who Should Get) a Serious Illness Conversation in the Hospital? An Analysis of Readmission Risk Score in an Electronic Health Record.

Serious Illness Conversations (SICs) explore patients' prognostic awareness, hopes, and worries, and can help establish priorities for their care during and after hospitalization. While identifying patients who benefit from an SIC remains a challenge, this task may be facilitated by use of validated prediction scores available in most commercial electronic health records (EHRs), such as Epic's Readmission Risk Score (RRS). We identified the RRS on admission for all hospital encounters from October 2018 to August 2019 and measured the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve to determine whether RRS could accurately discriminate post discharge 6-month mortality.