Hospitalists can you catch one in the hospital
Hospitalists: Can You “Catch” One In The Hospital?
It’s an emerging trend, and one that many patients find confusing and uncomfortable: their primary doctor doesn’t visit them in the hospital any more and doesn’t manage their hospital care.Primary care doctors are increasingly turning the care of their hospitalized patients over to specialists called “hospitalists.” The hospitalist is a hospital-based doctor who does not see patients in an office-based practice. He or she manages the care of patients only while they are in the hospital, turning them back over to their regular physicians when they are discharged. During the time a patient is in the hospital the hospitalist is responsible for all decisions about a patient’s care. Advantages of HospitalistsThe hospitalist usually knows the hospital, and hospital politics, very well. This often enables the hospitalist to cut through red tape and “make things happen” more efficiently than office-based physicians.Hospitalists are more readily available to respond to emergencies in the hospital. Nurses and other care staff can usually reach a hospitalist more rapidly than an office-based physician, especially on evenings and weekends.Continuity of care within the hospital is often better. When primary care physicians manage inpatient hospital care, the patient is often actually seen by more doctors, as doctors in larger practices often take turns seeing all of the practice’s hospitalized patients.Hospitalists are usually more accessible to family members. Families don’t have to try to “catch” the doctor in the wee hours of the morning or late in the evening when he or she is making hospital rounds outside of office hours. Disadvantages of Using a HospitalistThe biggest disadvantage to the movement toward hospitalists is the loss of continuity of care between the primary physician and the hospital. The hospitalist has no previous knowledge of his new patient. If communication between the primary care physician and the hospitalist is poor, it falls to the patient and the family to fill in the gaps. When a patient is discharged from the hospital the hospitalist relinquishes care back to the PCP. If communication has not been good, the primary care physician often has little knowledge of what the patient experienced in the hospital. Records are frequently slow to follow the patient, so on the first follow-up visit the office-based doctor may have scant information. 