Hospitalist

Hospitalists are "physicians who are employed to work exclusively in hospital settings, primarily for managed care organizations. They are the attending or primary responsible physician for the patient during hospitalization."

Hospitalists may provide more efficient care of patients in the hospital than primary care physicians. Hospitalists may perform more procedures than other primary care physicians.

There may, however, be inefficiencies in continuity of care and transfer of information among hospitalists and community primary physicians. Other problems may occur when the hospitalist refers a patient to a specialist, possibly following hospitalization, and either there is no "medical home" primary physician, the community primary physician is not aware of the hospitalist's thinking in the referral, or if the consultant report goes to the hospitalist rather than the community physician.