Becker's Healthcare October 28, 2024
Long gone are the days when primary care physicians stopped by a hospital on the way home from a hectic day to check on a patient.
Since 1999, hospitalists have largely taken over that job for primary care physicians and internists. The number of physicians practicing adult hospital medicine grew 50% in 2012 to 2019, totaling 44,037 by 2019. Rural and urban hospitals employ these hospitalists to cut costs, improve quality and perhaps make a small dent in the growing shortage of physicians who are leaving their practices because of burnout.
The term hospitalist was first used in 1996 in a New England Journal of Medicine article written by Robert Wachter, MD. There was a need for hospitals to...
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