OBJECTIVE Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is underutilized. Effective and efficient interventions are needed to increase its utilization in primary care. METHODS We used UNC Internal Medicine electronic medical records to perform 2 effectiveness trials. Eligible patients had no documentation of recent CRC screening and were aged 50-75 years. The mailed intervention contained a letter docume...

Aim We hypothesized that the quality of the assessment of abnormal laboratory data in the emergency department (ED) could affect the hospital-attending physicians' decision-making after a patient's hospitalization. To test this hypothesis, we investigated how patients with a positive D-dimer result were reported by ED physicians in electronic medical records, and measured whether lower extremit...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Physician awareness of the results of tests pending at discharge (TPADs) is poor. We developed an automated system that notifies responsible physicians of TPAD results via secure, network email. We sought to evaluate the impact of this system on self-reported awareness of TPAD results by responsible physicians, a necessary intermediary step to improve management of TPAD...

BACKGROUND Communication breakdowns between surgical residents and attending physicians in the pre- and postoperative setting are common contributors to patient injury. These communication transactions might offer an opportunity for safety improvement, but it remains unknown how often resident-attending communication fails, what the current level of attending involvement is, and how often atten...

BACKGROUND The institution of duty hour reforms by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in 2003 has created a learning environment where residents are consistently looking for input from attending physicians with regards to balancing duty hour regulations and providing quality patient care. There is a paucity of literature regarding resident perceptions of attending physicia...

OBJECTIVE To examine how attending physicians and senior residents negotiated shared responsibilities for teaching and supervising on clinical work rounds. METHODS As part of a larger ethnographic field study, we observed clinical work rounds on a General Pediatrics ward over 8 months, and interviewed 14 of 18 attending physicians and 9 of 11 senior residents whom we observed. Struck by the f...

BACKGROUND Clinical supervision is an important factor in the development of competency in residency program. Attending physicians play a key role in supervision of residents. However little is known about how attending physicians and residents perceive the quality of clinical supervision. The aim of this study was to explore the differences between perceived qualities of supervision in these t...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: There is evidence suggesting that physicians have a limited foundation of knowledge on health care finances and limited awareness of hospital costs and charges. The objective was to analyze general pediatric attending physicians’ and residents’ knowledge of costs, charges, and reimbursements for care rendered in the inpatient setting. METHODS: An online survey was admi...