Paul Levy
Posted 3/5/12 on Not Running a Hospital
Several weeks ago, I asked, “How do we feel about hospitalists?” I expressed my rather enthusiastic support for these hospital-based internists, as I have worked with many of them and found them to be attentive, patient- and family-centered, and highly focused on process improvement. Some people who commented felt differently.
But here comes a new study, entitled “Patient satisfaction with hospital care provided by hospitalists and primary care physicians,” by Adrianne Seller and others. Here’s the abstract.
Medical Staff Leader Connection summarizes:
Patients who received inpatient care from hospitalists were just as satisfied as those who received inpatient care from primary care physicians (PCP), according to a study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Patients who responded to the survey (2003-2009) were asked about physician care quality, physician behavior, pain management, and communication.
In multivariable models, hospitalists and PCPs scored similarly in the highest satisfaction category, 79.2% ranked hospitalists in this category, 80.5%, of patients put PCPs in it. There was equality in the improvement in quality ratings for both groups over the six-year period of the survey.
Care And Cost 