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It All Just Clicks: Development of an Inpatient E‐Consult Program
Author(s) -
Najaf Nader,
Harrison James D.,
Duong Jonathan,
Greenberg Anya,
Cheng Hugo Quinny
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of hospital medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.128
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1553-5606
pISSN - 1553-5592
DOI - 10.12788/jhm.2740
Subject(s) - medicine , subspecialty , audit , patient safety , hospital medicine , inpatient care , medical emergency , health care , medline , family medicine , management , political science , law , economics , economic growth
Although the use of electronic consultations (e‐consults) in the outpatient setting is commonplace, there is little evidence of their use in the inpatient setting. Often, the only choice hospitalists have is between requesting a time‐consuming in‐person consultation or requesting an informal, undocumented “curbside” consultation. For a new, remote hospital in our healthcare system, we developed an e‐consult protocol that can be used to address simple consultation questions. In the first year of the program, 143 e‐consults occurred; the top 5 consultants were infectious disease, hematology, endocrinology, nephrology, and cardiology. Over the first 4 months, no safety issues were identified in chart review audits; to date, no safety issues have been identified through the hospital's incident reporting system. In surveys, hospitalists were universally pleased with the quality of e‐consult recommendations, though only 43% of consultants agreed. With appropriate care for patient selection, e‐consults can be used to safely and efficiently provide subspecialty expertise to a remote inpatient site.