Hospitalists engage in a wide array of tasks that are critically important in the provision of general medical care in hospital settings. However, their extensive role in the healthcare system remains unknown in relative terms to the general public.

Hospitalists are those kinds of doctors (also known as physicians) who specialize in the inpatient care of patients who are hospitalized. Being a relatively new branch of specialized medicine, their role continues to evolve with time.

They engage in a wide variety of activities in hospitals, including inpatient care, teaching, research, and leadership roles, to improve hospital performance and patient outcomes.

History of the term and function of Hospitalist - where it all began from?

Reaching back to 1996 (approximately, 25 years ago), the term hospitalist was first coined in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. That article was written by none other than Robert Wachter, MD, MHM.

As this area of focus rose to prominence in the field of medicine and healthcare, it did not take much time for the hospitalist model to demonstrate its very effectiveness.

As a response, the Society of Hospital Medicine was founded in the year 1997. Eventually, studies quickly began showing that hospitalist physicians were proven effective at reducing expenses for organizations. They even reduced the length of stay for hospital patients whilst improving the quality of both patient care and patient outcomes.

What is the difference between a Doctor and a Hospitalist?

According to experienced faculty members teaching medicine at well-known Caribbean Medical Universities, A hospitalist is a physician specializing in hospital operations. They also help coordinate between various stakeholders involved in inpatient care.

Unlike other medical specialists, hospitalists usually focus on the site of patient care (i.e. the hospital, clinic, or another relevant healthcare setup), instead of a particular kind of care, system of the human body, or a specific demographic.

Hospitalists assist with the continuum of hospital care by following patients and work together with internal stakeholders for improving patient outcomes and operational efficiency.

What exactly are the duties of a hospitalist?

With the increasing complexity of modern medical care, the role of hospitalists will become more important than ever in time.

The approach of the hospitalist was developed to address numerous challenging issues faced by hospital managers and physicians alike due to rising complexities of hospital care for adult patients, like the need for improved convenience, safety, and efficiency for patients, improved coordination for specialized care, and increased cost-effectiveness for hospitals.

Via such an approach, hospital medicine specialists provide insights based on evidence into the nature of care in modern hospital settings and environments. They even do the same to improve hospital patient outcomes.

On  daily basis, the practice of hospital medicine includes the following:

• Managing the care of adult hospitalized patients.
• Following test results, ordering of medications, and updating medical charts regularly.
• Communicating with patients, their families, and medical staff.
• Ordering consultations from physicians of other medical specialties.

Are Hospitalists Trained in Internal Medicine?

Though no one needs to be an internal medicine specialist to become a hospitalist, a background in internal medicine is usually a common prerequisite condition to making a career in hospital medicine as a hospitalist. Consequently, a lot of hospitalists come from a background in general internal medicine.

How do med students become hospitalists?

Becoming a hospitalist needs numerous years of training, education, and certification. The first step in becoming a hospitalist is getting accepted into medical school. From that point, med students must secure medical residency training.

Most specialists in hospital medicine (hospitalists) complete a three-year residency in internal medicine to become internists. Near the end of the residency, individuals must pass the internal medicine board examination so their position in the residency can be determined (and possibly secured)

The practice of hospital medicine may overlap with internal medicine by a large margin. This is the reason numerous hospitalists were internists at first. Since hospitalists aren’t always internal medicine physicians, med graduates receiving board certification in other residencies or fellowships such as family medicine, intensive care medicine or pulmonology, can also practice hospital medicine with ease.

Once the residency and board exams are complete, doctors are completely trained in hospitals and can hence land a job in hospital medicine.