Optimizing Discharge Summaries: A Multispecialty, Multicenter Survey of Primary Care Clinicians.

Background: Patient care in the United States has become increasingly more fragmented, and the discharge summary serves as a critical tool for transmitting information on a patient's hospital admission to the primary care clinician. Some guidelines regarding how to write discharge summaries exist, but few are focused on prioritizing content that is most important to optimize a patient's transition of care.

Methods: We conducted a national survey across various medical primary care specialties, including trainees and advanced practice providers, to understand the priorities of primary care clinicians.

Acute bacterial skin and soft tissue infections: new drugs in ID armamentarium.

Acute bacterial skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) are among the most common reasons for hospitalization of adults in the USA today. Cellulitis or SSTI can cause significant morbidity and mortality. The 2014 IDSA guideline update for the management of skin and soft tissue infections classified skin infections as purulent cellulitis (causative pathogen - Staphylococcus aureus including MRSA) and nonpurulent cellulitis (causative pathogens include Streptococcus).

Adoption of electronic health records and barriers.

Electronic health records (EHR) are not a new idea in the U.S. medical system, but surprisingly there has been very slow adoption of fully integrated EHR systems in practice in both primary care settings and within hospitals.