Hospital Medicine

Technologic advancements and other innovative efforts to improve the quality of hospital-based care have resulted in large and complicated networks of personnel, information systems, devices, medications, and countless other resources. In parallel with these changes, the medical acuity of the typical hospitalized patient has increased. The field of hospital medicine emerged in response to this combination of increasing hospital complexity, patient acuity, and professional demands. This chapter highlights several topics that may be unique to the hospital and are not discussed elsewhere in this textbook. They include interfaces among settings and people in the hospital, medication reconciliation, dismissal from the hospital, information systems, nutritional assessment and provision, geriatric assessment, complications of hospitalization, hospital-acquired infections, complications of surgery, the quality and safety movements, bioterrorism, and risks to health care workers.