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Hospital capacity strain and emergency department congestion have led many hospitals to implement “discharge before noon” as one of their core throughput metrics, despite lack of convincing evidence that this strategy is effective. In a new randomized, multicenter trial at three large U.S. academic hospitals, researchers evaluated this practice.
From February through July 2021, 4437 patients were admitted to 60 hospital medicine teams, staffed by a hospitalist alone or in tandem with a resident or advanced practice provider. Hospitalists across the three study sites were randomized to either prioritizing patients who were going to be discharged that day (and entering the discharge order as soon as possible) or to usual practice before the st…