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Marketing outreach for starting and expanding a hospitalist program

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, September 26, 2007

Although inpatient medicine is in its second decade, many patients and their families have not yet been exposed to hospitalists. The popularity and growth of hospital medicine has led most primary care physicians to realize the advantages of the inpatient model of care, but many still harbor misconceptions about losing patients to hospitalists, or simply do not have all the facts about what a partnership with a hospitalist programs entails. For these reasons, marketing outreach to the community is vital to the success of an inpatient medicine program.

Education of and communication with the medical community can be accomplished in various ways. Drafting a detailed letter describing hospitalist practice and service is certainly a starting point.

Additionally, a hospitalist brochure sent to referring providers' offices for distribution to patients could reinforce the practice's objectives and educate the patients in the community.

This brochure may include services offered, the program's objectives and mission, and hospitalists' short biographies, with photos.

In addition, the hospitalist program's clinical director or another representative of the service should follow up on initiatives with a visit to the offices of referring providers.

Learn more about running a hospitalist program in Tools and Strategies for an Effective Hospitalist Program, by Jeffrey R. Dichter, MD, FACP; and Kenneth G. Simone, DO, published by HCPro, Inc.

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