Illustration by David Rosenman
Newman's Notions | April 2, 2025 | FREE
Most ACP Hospitalist content is available exclusively to ACP Members. This article is free to the public.

Have scope—will travel

You never know what will get a patient to open up.

Hospital tested providing zoledronic acid to inpatients with hip fracture

An intervention to provide osteoporosis treatment during hospitalization and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry after discharge resulted in 58% of low-trauma hip fracture patients receiving anti-osteoporosis treatment within six months of admission, a Danish study found.

Deprescribing sedatives during hospitalization may reduce adverse events, study finds

Older patients who had sedatives deprescribed during hospitalization were substantially less likely to experience any adverse event within 30 days, while those who had the drugs newly prescribed at discharge had double the risk for falls.

Arterial blood gas testing in ICU patients varies by race, sex

Asian, Black, Hispanic or Latino, and female patients get fewer arterial blood gas tests, even after adjustment for illness severity and hospital characteristics, a multicenter cohort study of critical care found.

Hospitalizations common among patients with substance use disorder

The finding that 9.7% of patients with substance use disorder reported a hospitalization in the past year highlights the potential benefit of hospital-based screening and treatment programs on substance use, according to the authors of a new study.

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Take a quiz about the March 26 issue!

Every week, ACP Hospitalist posts a question about the previous week's issue. See how well you remember what you've read compared to other readers.

Photo courtesy of Dr Haber

Analyzing academic nocturnists

Nocturnists have become increasingly common in academic hospital medicine, but there's been surprisingly little study of their role, an author of a recent review explains.

Image by Getty Images
Success Story | March 26, 2025 | FREE
Most ACP Hospitalist content is available exclusively to ACP Members. This article is free to the public.

Give patients a rest

Brainstorming with frontline staff helped one hospital provide quieter nights for its patients.

AHA offers advice on blood culture-negative endocarditis

A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) highlighted the potential of novel diagnostic tools to offer advances in care.

Nudging physicians about communication with ICU patients did not reduce LOS

A reminder to discuss treatment alternatives was associated with increased hospice use and less time to comfort-focused care but no changes in hospital length of stay (LOS) in a trial among ICU patients with chronic serious illness at 10 U.S. hospitals.

Secure messaging drives increases in EHR use, attention switching

On average, hospital clinicians spent a median of 250.5 minutes per day in the electronic health record (EHR), and those in the 75th percentile of secure messaging volume spent 25.5 more minutes per day in the EHR compared to those in the 25th percentile.

‘Broken heart syndrome’ poses risk of readmission comparable to myocardial infarction

Patients who have been treated for takotsubo syndrome are at higher risk of subsequent hospitalization, especially for cardiovascular conditions but also for stroke, gastrointestinal, and neurological conditions, a retrospective Scottish study found.

Dealing with devices

Preoperative assessment can involve an increasingly long list of medical devices. Learn what to do with them.

Image by Adobe Stock

Controversies in perioperative care

An anesthesiologist weighs in on whether to give carbohydrates before surgery and gabapentin after.


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