• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

An in-depth look at hospitalists in the U.S.

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, September 19, 2007

A September 11 article in The Washington Post examined the recent growth in the hospital medicine field over the past 10 years, which has seen an increase from a few hundred physicians in 1997 to 20,000 today-making the field roughly equal in size to gastroenterology and neurology.
The article says that according to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), the hospitalist market growth marks the fastest growth for any medical specialty in the country.
The story also took an in-depth view of the impact of the profession and how hospitals and managed-care organizations are betting that the use of hospitalists will result in better patient care.
The article cited surveys that say that nearly three-quarters of primary care physicians (PCPs) believe hospitalists provide them with "a valuable service." However, while 95% of hospitalists who responded said they believed their specialty had "improved the overall quality of hospital care," only 40% of PCPs agreed with that statement.
Click here to read the entire article.
Source: "The Hospitalist Is In . . . And Taking Over a Role Played by Primary Care Physicians" The Washington Post, Sept. 11, 2007.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive