Hospitalist Growth Highlighted in NYT

The New York Times Jane Gross puts the spotlight on Hospital Medicine with her recent article:  “New Breed of Specialists Signs in for Family Doctor. “

With patients still largely confused or even ignorant of the role of Hospitalists, Gross’ article explains, in lay terms, how hospitalists fit into new models of health care delivery:

“Because hospitalists are on top of everything that happens to a patient — from entry through treatment and discharge — they are largely credited with reducing the length of hospital stays by anywhere from 17 to 30 percent, and reducing costs by 13 to 20 percent, according to studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association. As their numbers have grown, from 800 in the 1990s to 30,000 today, medical experts have come to see hospitalists as potential leaders in the transition to the Obama administration’s health care reforms, to be phased in by 2014.

Under the new legislation, hospitals will be penalized for readmissions, medical errors and inefficient operating systems. Avoidable readmissions are the costliest mistakes for the government and the taxpayer, and they now occur for one in five patients, gobbling $17.4 billion of Medicare’s current $102.6 billion budget.”