Study Shows Hospitalists Reduce Patient's Time In The Hospital, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 09 Jan 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that hospitalists, physicians who care for hospitalized patients, reduce a patient's length of stay in the hospital by almost half a day.

The study looked at 76,926 patients at 45 hospitals between September 2002 and January 2005, treated by hospitalists, general internists, and family physicians. Those patients cared for by hospitalists showed a .4 day shorter stay than those patients treated by general internists and family physicians.

"Although the difference may on first glance seem small, when multiplied by the thousands of cases that a hospitalist group cares for each year, a .4 day shorter stay can have a huge impact says Peter Lindenauer, MD, MSc, the primary researcher on the project, medical director at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA and member of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM). For example, the efficiencies created by a hospitalistprogram that cared for 10,000 patients each year could translate into 1000 additional patients that could receive care at a hospital without increasing the number of beds." Furthermore, for patients that spend hours or days waiting in overcrowded emergency rooms waiting for a bed, these small but statistically significant differences can be extremely meaningful.

Another finding is patients cared for by hospitalists had lower hospital costs: approximately $268 lower than general internists and $125 lower than family physicians. These reductions in length of stay and cost per stay did not come at the expense of the quality of care. The inpatient mortality and 14-day readmission rate for hospitalist patients were the same as those treated by general internists and family physicians.

"Hospitalists continue to prove in be an invaluable resource to hospitals and patients," said Larry Wellikson, MD, SHM's Chief Executive Officer. "Studies like this one show why hospitals all across the country see that having hospitalists on their medical staffs can benefit their patients. Simply put, this study confirms that hospitalists are making a tangible difference."

SHM is the premier medical society representing hospitalists. Over the past decade, research studies proving that hospitalists decrease patient lengths of stay, hospital costs and patient mortality rates while increasing patient satisfaction, have galvanized the hospital medicine profession and spurred demand for hospitalists nationwide. Currently, hospital medicine is the fastest-growing medical specialty in the U.S., with today's 20,000 hospitalists projected to grow to about 30,000 by the end of the decade.

Society of Hospital Medicine