What Is a Hospitalist?

The hospital model of care has undergone a number of transformations in recent years. One change has been the addition of different types of health professionals such as a Hospitalist. About ten years ago, Hospitalists began to appear in the health care industry. Since then, they have become more widely used in hospitals. Today, there are more physicians that are using Hospitalists to care for their patients when they are admitted to the hospital or they come to the emergency room.

A Hospitalist is a medical practitioner who specializes in caring for hospitalized patients. Hospitalists work with a physician while caring for the physician's patient. They receive the same medical school training as other physicians. Most of these practitioners specialize in working with internal medicine doctors, but they also can work along side family physicians, nurse practitioners, pediatric specialists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Their specialty is focused in the hospital supporting physicians who are burdened with too many tasks. They can be found working in a family physician medical practice to help reduce the physician's workload. Sometimes Hospitalists may will handle the on-call services for a physician.
Duties of Hospitalists normally include patient care, education, and research. As well, they convey information and coordinate care with the patient's primary care physician and other specialists. This saves the physician money and time of having to visit the hospital and be on call when a patient is admitted into the hospital and visits the emergency room. A Hospitalist can work for not just a hospital or family medical practice, but they can also work for a medical managed care group.
Generally, Hospitalists normally earn an income comparable to physicians with the same training. Hospitalists were once mostly found working in the US, but now there is a growing number of these practitioners working in Canada. There are now a number of hospitals and medical schools integrating Hospitalist residency programs due to the increase in the number of Hospitalists in the healthcare field.
There are many benefits to using the services of Hospitalists. They have more experience and expertise in caring for complex hospitalized patients on a daily basis. They are also more available than traditional physicians and can meet with family members, answer nurse questions, follow-up on lab tests, answer nurses' questions, and deal with problems as they occur. Often a Hospitalist will see a patient more than the physician because they make sure the health treatment going smoothly. As well, they explain the treatment to patients and their family as well as keep them updated on the patient's progress.
Hospitals hire Hospitalists for many reasons such as: convenience, improve efficiency, relieve financial strain on primary care physicians, patient support and safety, cost-efficiency for the hospital, and the hospital required more specialized and coordinated care for hospitalized patients. When in the hospital and you fins yourself under the care of a Hospitalist, you can rest easy that your care is in you are in safe and qualified hands. As well, if you are interested in becoming a Hospitalist, it is a very lucrative and rewarding career that is growing in demand.