30-Second Takeaway
- Protecting clinic time for EHR work can improve physician productivity and reduce after-hours EHR burden without harming access.
- Rural hospital-at-home care delivers similar clinical outcomes and costs to inpatient care, with higher activity and better experience.
- Multifactorial risk-factor control in type 2 diabetes can nearly normalize life expectancy versus non-diabetic peers.
- CGM use in insulin-treated older adults with dementia is linked to lower hospitalization and mortality than SMBG.
- COVID-19 hospitalization, but not milder infection, confers sustained excess cardiovascular and mortality risk beyond one year.
Week ending December 6, 2025
Clinic operations, cardiometabolic risk, and evolving post-COVID burdens: Eight new studies with near-term practice implications
Reserving one visit slot per half-day for EHR work improves outpatient productivity
In this cohort of internal medicine physicians, reserving one appointment slot per half-day for EHR work increased visit productivity by roughly 10%. Protected EHR time was also associated with about 15 minutes less EHR use per day, suggesting reduced after-hours documentation burden. Patient communication volume did not decrease, indicating that protected time did not come at the expense of portal or messaging access. These data support proactively scheduling protected EHR blocks as a practice-level intervention to improve throughput and clinician workload.
Rural hospital-at-home care matches inpatient outcomes with higher activity and better experience
This randomized trial compared home-hospital care with rural brick-and-mortar hospitalization for 161 adults needing acute-level care. Direct episode costs were similar, with home-hospital 14% higher on average but not statistically different from inpatient care. Thirty-day readmission and days at home within 30 days were also similar between groups, supporting clinical noninferiority. Home-hospital patients were substantially less sedentary and took more daily steps, and reported better experience scores than inpatients. These findings support rural hospital-at-home programs as a viable alternative for selected acute conditions when adequate home services exist.
Meeting multiple lifestyle and metabolic targets in T2D normalizes life expectancy gap
Across three nationwide cohorts including 46,351 adults with type 2 diabetes, achieving more guideline targets was strongly associated with longer life expectancy. At age 50, individuals with one or fewer risk factors out of target lived 6–9 years longer than those with five or more uncontrolled. Their life expectancy approximated matched controls without diabetes, underscoring the value of multifactorial risk management. Healthy lifestyle behaviors plus HbA1c control contributed most to life expectancy gains across China, US, and UK cohorts. Participants with healthy lifestyles but suboptimal metabolic control outlived those with good metabolic metrics but unhealthy lifestyles, highlighting lifestyle’s central role.
References
Numbered in order of appearance. Click any reference to view details.
Additional Reads
Optional additional studies from this edition.