In-hospital MDs take pressure off physicians

mysticalwaters1 · Oct 30, 2006

found at:healthleaders media
in-hospital mds take pressure off physicians
boston globe, oct. 30, 2006
hospitalists are members of the fastest-growing medical specialty in the country. they work exclusively in the hospital and do not have their own community or family practices outside the hospital walls. the job of these dedicated inpatient physicians is to make sure patients are getting the right treatment and tests, help patients and families understand what is happening, and make sure patients do not stay in the hospital longer than necessary.

i love the hospitalist program. mostly due to the fact we had one available day and night to call for any pt concerns. however more and more primary mds i feel in some ways abuse them to not have to come to the hospital at all for pts. i don't know if this is good or bad. if they do this they'll need more hospitalists then would maybe be the solution. a good thing then maybe the primary mds can concentrate on their practice more and not have to be oncall. however is there lack of continuity in care with the primary doctor not available in the hospital. anyway, i just know the hospitalists in my hospital are awesome. they also come to codes and anyone who doesn't have a main doctor they are their. they are usually quite thourough as well i find. actually extremely throrough.

also i've made comments to my family in friends honestly i would never consider getting involved with a doctor or surgeon with a practice due to being on call and constantly working. except for hospitalists and er doctors!!! just b/c they concentrate on their designated shifts and that's it!

tvccrn, ASN, RN · Oct 30, 2006

I don't like this program. When a patient comes into the hospital and has a hospitalist taking care of them, the hospitalist doesn't know the patient like the primary MD does. Most of the time, they don't take the time to look at the charts. The patients get confused as to who is taking care of them because they have a different "doctor" everyday and I believe this make for poor care for them.

I feel that we have gone the way of conveinence for the doctors and forgotten all about continuity of care for the patients.

The only reason I would ever deal with this program is because it's the only thing we have in place for in-hospital care.

tvccrn

RN and Mommy · Oct 30, 2006

I love the hospitalists. They are very handy to have in house at all times and if I am concerned about a patient, they don't hesitate to come up and see them. I feel that they are very thorough, in fact, I believe them to be a bit more thorough than some of the primary physicians because they don't know the patient very well, they want to be thorough.

mysticalwaters1 · Nov 1, 2006

I feel that they are very thorough in fact, I believe them to be a bit more thorough than some of the primary physicians because they don't know the patient very well, they want to be thorough.[/quote'] That is what I find overal as well. However, I do see pts confused with several hospitalists rotating shifts comming around and I don't think pt's care for this but overal the hospitalist I work with do the research, call the primary mds and are thorough. They should keep in touch with the primary md or rather the primary mds should keep in touch with them for progress.

tvccrn, ASN, RN · Nov 1, 2006

If our program worked that way, I might feel differently. I don't work on the floor and all I know is that our patients never know who the doctor taking care of them is and the majority would like it better if their own doctor was involved more.

tvccrn

Retired R.N. · Nov 1, 2006

I have been very happy with my experiences as a patient with hospitalists. My primary MD explained the system to me when I first signed up as a patient. It's wonderful to know that you will never have to depend on a doctor who is so tired that (s)he can barely push one foot ahead of the other, and to know that your office visits will never be canceled or delayed because your personal MD had to make a dash to the hospital to take care of an emergency situation. In my way of thinking, having a "team" of well-rested doctors take care of me while I am hospitalized is great because one of them might easily notice something that a very fatigued doctor might have missed.

The nurses in that hospital were very happy with the hospitalists, and told me they wondered why more hospitals didn't have that system in place.

HappyNurse2005, RN · Nov 1, 2006

I liked the hospitalists b/c they were always around. Many of our local docs didn't come to the hospital, and te patients automatically saw the hospitalists (i chose my own pcp by making sure that she WOULDN"T punt me to a hospitalist).

if you come to the er with no pcp you are automatically on the hospitalists service.

LeahJet, ASN, RN · Nov 1, 2006

I work in the ER and we love love love our Hospitalists!!

We don't have to spend our valuable time in playing the "let's find a doctor" game.

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Nov 2, 2006

As a nurse I love the hospitalist program. As a patient I would be upset if my PCP didn't see me in the hospital. He already knows all about me and has some vested interest.

Mimi2RN, ASN, RN · Nov 2, 2006

We love having our pediatric hospitalists. It's a great improvement over calling in the "on-call" ped, having them drive in, and if we were lucky be there for the problem delivery. We still have to deal with calling the clinic peds for some patients, but at least the critical kids are all hospitalist patients.

LeahJet, ASN, RN · Nov 2, 2006

As a nurse I love the hospitalist program. As a patient I would be upset if my PCP didn't see me in the hospital. He already knows all about me and has some vested interest.

I'm not sure about other facilities but here, only unreferred or patients that have doctors with no admitting priviledges are admitted to the hospitalists.