Hospitalist Jobs Becoming New Standard In USA

The position of hospitalist is one that first came into being in 1995, and has since been elevated so quickly within the healthcare field that it is now nearly indispensable in hospitals across the United States. In recent years, the profession is moving quickly towards being more clearly defined and fine-tuned, and is proving to be an invaluable, permanent addition to hospital staffing nationwide.

What Is A Hospitalist?

The role of a hospitalist is to focus exclusively on hospital-based care, with approximately 75% caring for patients in the intensive care unit. While these professionals typically work within primary care, a variety of physicians are involved in hospitalist work in different specialties, broken down into the following "-ist" professions:

* Surgical (Surgicalists)
* Obstetric (Laborists)
* Orthopedic
* Medical Procedural
* Intensivist
* Neurohospitalists
* Psychiatry
* Trauma Hospitalists

As hospitalists, these professions would all share the commonality of having the primary professional focus of caring for hospitalized patients and providing in-hospital services, as opposed to moving continually between inpatient and ambulatory services.

The Growth Of The Hospitalist Professionr
At the time of the profession's birth, it was estimated that there were approximately 1,000 individuals whose work defined a hospitalist's unique role in medical facilities. By 2006, the practice had spread to almost half of all hospitals. Additionally, a 1996 report by the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 84% of teaching hospitals had at least hospitalists on staff.

By 2010, the Society Of Hospital Medicine (SHM) had estimated that there weree approximately 31,000 physicians practicing hospital medicine - a fact that sets the position as the fastest growing physician specialty of all time. These hospitalists practice in more than 3,000 institutions, and there is hardly an institution that neither has a hospitalist program in place nor has plans to initiate one in the future.

Why Hospitalist Jobs Are Vital To Facilitiesr
Before hospitalists emerged, a typical family practitioner could expect about ten patients to be admitted to a hospital at any given time. This meant that along with the day-to-day tasks of visiting patients within the office, the practitioner would also need to make the rounds, visiting the hospitals where their patients are recovering.

While obviously not ideal for the clinician, the situation also had its disadvantages for the inpatient. If a patient had tests ordered in the morning that didn't arrive until the afternoon, their hospital stay is unnecessarily extended; the clinician may not arrive again until the following morning, long after the patient is ready to leave.

Conversely, a hospitalist remains in the hospital full-time, and can advocate the best interests of the patient: coordinating care and keeping organized, reducing the average length (and cost) of the patient's stay, lowering readmission rates, and overseeing handoffs.

A successful hospitalist program can improve hospital compliance with core measures, improve charting and coding that affects the hospital's case mix index, and, potentially, a 200% return on investment for the staffing.