What is a hospitalist? In search of a definition of hospital medicine
What is a hospitalist? If you’re like me, you have to use House, MD, and Scrubs in terms of what you do. The Society of Hospitalist Medicine, the professional organization with more than 10,000 members, now makes it a little easier now and offers formal definitions for hospitalist and hospital medicine.
Hospital medicine – A medical specialty dedicated to the delivery of comprehensive medical care to hospitalized patients. Practitioners of hospital medicine include physicians (“hospitalists”) and nonphysician providers who engage in clinical care, teaching, research, or leadership in the field of general hospital medicine. In addition to their core expertise managing the clinical problems of acutely ill, hospitalized patients, hospital medicine practitioners work to enhance the performance of hospitals and healthcare systems.
Hospitalist – A physician who specializes in the practice of hospital medicine. Following medical school, hospitalists typically undergo residency training in general internal medicine, general pediatrics, or family practice, but may also receive training in other medical disciplines.
What’s interesting about these definitions is hospital medicine recognizes the work of NPPs in its definition. You can’t have hospital medicine without them.
Although it’s important to recognize the commitments of NPPs, it’s also important to distinguish between the kind of work NPPs and hospitalists do.
A quick Google search brings up Wikipedia, everyone’s favorite shortcut to nonverified information that we all tend to over use. You’ll be interested to hear that Wikipedia describes hospitalist as the following:
The practical effect of the hospitalist is to act as a case manager, due to the tremendous growth in medical knowledge and resultant number of medical specialists sometimes causing problems.
Would you call yourself a case manager? Would case managers call themselves hospitalists? It may be time that we start redefining the terms.
About the Author: Karen M. Cheung is the associate editor for HCPro, Inc., the healthcare compliance publisher, delivering news and information to the medical staff market with products such as books, e-newsletters, seminars, and broadcast events.
Before arriving at HCPro, Karen served as the news editor for Reviewed.com (including DigitalCameraInfo.com and lead blogger for CamcorderInfo.com), providing unbiased tech reviews for the WashingtonPost.com. Having trained with The Washington Post photo department and earning a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University, Karen has experience with news and commercial photography. During her time in D.C., she covered Capitol Hill and the White House for daily New England newspapers.
