Hospitalists Use Teamwork To Improve Care, Increase Efficiency In Hospitals

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 18 Nov 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Hospitals who employ the hospitalist model of care deliver better patient outcomes, according to a study published in the Fall 2008 issue of Human Resource Management. The study - the first of its kind to explore the differences between hospitalist and traditional models of care - measured performance outcomes in more than 6,000 cases at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts between July 2001and July 2003. At the time of the study, hospitalists treated approximately one-third of the hospital's patients, and private practice physicians treated the other two-thirds.

Compared to the traditional approach, researchers found that the hospitalist model:

- Decreased the length of patient stay by about half a day and reduced costs to the hospital by $655 per patient.

- Reduced the risk of re-admitting a patient by 41.8 percent, a key measure of quality performance in hospitals.

- Improved coordination by 13.2 percent by increasing the strength of communication and relationships between physicians and other members of the care provider team.

Rather than the primary care physician following their patients from outpatient to inpatient care, as is the case in the traditional care model, physicians now have the option of transferring patient care responsibilities to a hospitalist. The hospitalist then becomes responsible for the patient's care throughout the course of the hospital stay.

"When patients have a hospitalist as their attending physician, they receive better care. At the same time, all parties benefit from lower cost outcomes," said the article's lead author, Jody Hoffer Gittell, MBA Program Director and Associate Professor at Brandeis University. "Even more importantly, we now know why: compared to the traditional model, the hospitalist model enables physicians to communicate and relate more effectively with the nurses, therapists and case managers who are assigned to the same patient."

The comparative benefits of the hospitalist model don't come as a surprise to some who have been following the trend, such as Joe Miller, co-author of the study and executive advisor to the CEO for the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM).

"The role of the hospitalist was created to address the need for a physician dedicated to inpatient care, increasing both care quality and efficiency, as our study clearly illustrates," said Miller. "Physicians are expected to be at the center of patient care coordination. When the physician is maintaining a private practice and intermittently making hospital rounds, the care of the patient suffers."

About Society of Hospital Medicine

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 over 20,000 hospitalists today and is projected to grow to about 30,000 by the end of the decade. For more information about SHM, visit http://www.hospitalmedicine.org.

About Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the premier journal for thoughtful human resource leaders. We publish thought-provoking and rigorous articles that lead to new ways of approaching the human resource management field and HR leadership. As such, we accept papers presenting new research, innovative theoretical approaches, and changes in management paradigms from leading scholars and practitioners. Articles fall into two categories: (1) those grounded in theory and/or papers using scientific research methods (e.g., reports of original empirical studies, ethnographic studies, critical reviews of existing empirical research, theory pieces that clearly extend current thinking); and (2) those focusing on innovative HR approaches that are based on well reasoned-extensions of existing research, experiential knowledge, or exemplary cases (e.g., thought pieces, case studies, top executive interviews). Please visit our website at http://www.wileyinterscience.com/hrm or contact Editor-in-Chief Theresa Welbourne at twelbour@umich.edu

Society of Hospital Medicine

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