BACKGROUND The emergence of physician owned specialty hospitals focusing on high margin procedures has generated significant controversy. Yet, it is unclear whether physician owned specialty hospitals differ significantly from non physician owned specialty hospitals and thus merit the additional scrutiny that has been proposed. Our objective was to assess whether physician owned specialty ortho...

Discussing preferences regarding resuscitation is a challenging and important task for any physician. Understanding patients' wishes at the end of life allows physicians to provide the type of care patients want, to avoid unwanted interventions, and to promote patient autonomy and dignity. Hospitalists face an even greater challenge because they are often meeting a patient for the first time in...

In a recent Motherisk Clinical Practice Update published in Canadian Family Physician, the authors presented the following question from a family physician: “ I have several patients whom I suspect are drinking during pregnancy. How can I find out for sure if they are?” 1 In response, the Motherisk Update advised the use of brief standardised alcohol-use questionnaires that can be used to scree...

OBJECTIVE To determine the professions of those who contribute to guidelines, guideline variables associated with differing contributor participation, and whether conflict of interest statements are provided in primary care guidelines. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of the primary care guidelines from the Canadian Medical Association website. Two independent data extractors reviewed the guidel...

Because both computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems and mobile technologies such as handheld devices have the potential to greatly impact the industry's future, IT vendors, hospitals, and clinicians are simply merging them into a logical convergence--"CPOE on a handheld"--with an expectation of full functionality on all platforms: computer workstations, rolling laptops, tablet PCs, a...

Intrapartum electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) is one of the most common procedures in obstetrics. Current consensus statements provide clinicians with a common language for EFM as well as provide a basis for a simplified approach to interpretation and management. This article presents a summary of the content and implementation of a statewide initiative in interdisciplinary EFM education and tr...

BACKGROUND The direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medications is proliferating in the United States. The relationship between patient exposure to DTCA and the response of clinicians is not well understood. METHODS A randomized postal survey of Arizona primary care provider physicians (n = 1080) and physician assistants (n = 704) was conducted. A questionnaire was created us...

OBJECTIVE No studies have explored the barriers to implementing lung-protective ventilation in patients with acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Our objective was to identify barriers to using lung-protective ventilation in patients with ALI/ARDS. DESIGN Survey with content analysis of open-ended responses. SETTING Medical center. PARTICIPANTS Experienc...