Quality & Patient Safety

Hospitalists’ role in patient safety: Leading the care team

Patient Safety Monitor, May 1, 2009

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If your hospital is like the majority of hospitals in the United States, you probably have a few hospitalists managing patients.

The term “hospitalist”—coined in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article by the now well-known healthcare blogger Robert Wachter, MD, and his colleague Lee Goldman, MD, MPH—represents “physicians whose primary professional focus is the general medical care of hospitalized patients. Their activities include patient care, teaching research, and leadership related to hospital medicine,” according to the Society of Hospital Medicine.

A study published in the March 12 New England Journal of Medicine found that nearly 40% of inpatient care is delivered by hospitalists in the United States. In some parts of the country, that number increases to 70%.

Patient safety is not a stand-alone concept; every member of a hospital’s staff must be aware of how his or her job could place a patient at risk for a negative health outcome and work to provide safe patient care. The same is true for hospitalists, although their job often keeps patients safe by coordinating care levels in addition to managing clinical outcomes.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor.

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