Doctors Forego Office-Based Practices to Specialize in Care of Hospitalized Patients
"Hospitalists" Growing Trend in Health Care

The next time you, a friend or a family member gets hospitalized, you might be treated by a "hospitalist."

First coined in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article, the term hospitalist refers to physicians who specialize exclusively in the care of hospitalized patients. Once patients are released from the hospital, they return to the care of their regular primary care physician.

"Although they’re quite common in many other countries such as Canada and England, hospitalists are a relatively new trend in U.S. health care," said David C. Pate, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer, St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System. "Patients should know that hospitalists stay in close contact with the patient’s PCP, so there is no need to be concerned that a patient won’t still benefit from the relationship they already have with their physician."

Pate said there are many advantages to using a hospitalist that people may not be aware of. Those advantages include the fact that hospitalists are usually more accessible to patients because they don’t have a private practice of patients to care for and that they are very familiar with key hospital players, including medical and surgical consultants, discharge planners, clergy and others. Hospitalists also bring to their patients expertise in the care of common inpatient disorders and, because they can be at a patient’s bedside almost immediately, are oftentimes able to take action faster than a primary care physician who might only see the patient once a day. Other advantages to hospitalists include their ability to facilitate connections with post-acute providers such as home health, skilled nursing, and specialized rehabilitation.

"Expertise in the unique needs of hospitalized patients is more important than ever," said Pate. "With the rise of managed care, you’re more likely to receive medical treatment on an outpatient basis. Therefore, today’s hospital patients tend to be sicker than they used to be. This works out well for hospitalists, many of whom have specifically chosen the hospitalist specialty because they enjoy providing care to acute patients and do not wish to have the difficulties of maintaining an office-based practice."

St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital utilizes the services of Medical Center Hospitalists, a six-member hospitalist practice that receives patients in a variety of ways, including unassigned emergency inpatient admissions, transferred patients and physician referrals.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System, which recently purchased the Kelsey-Seybold Management Company, also utilizes the services of Kelsey-Seybold Hospitalists, a six-member group of internists supported by other Kelsey-Seybold Clinic specialists. Kelsey-Seybold Clinic is Houston’s largest community-based multispeciality physician group, with 23 locations and more than 250 physicians.

A study in Medical Economics magazine found that hospitalists can reduce the average length of a patient’s hospital stay by more than 30 percent and the average cost by 20 percent. A study in the American Journal of Medicine reports there are approximately 4,500 hospitalists practicing in the United States today, and that number could reach 20,000 by 2009.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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