Providing consistent care with standardized admission orders.

As physicians, we are constantly searching for ways to reduce variability, simplify work processes and improve the quality of our services. This is especially true for family physicians because the scope of our specialty is so vast. During a typical day, it is normal for us to encounter a wide variety of patient problems, and nowhere is it as difficult – or important – for us to strive for consistency, efficiency and accuracy in our care as in the hospital setting. In our 15-physician department of family medicine, which is part of a large multispecialty clinic, we care for our hospitalized patients with an “internal hospitalist” program. Each physician rotates as a hospitalist, caring exclusively for family medicine inpatients for one week every few months. To help decrease unnecessary variability in our care, we created a series of admission orders for common hospital admissions.