RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Lessons from across the Atlantic: an overview of hospitalist medicine in the USA
JF Future Hospital Journal
JO Future Hosp J
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 146
OP 149
DO 10.7861/futurehosp.4-2-146
VO 4
IS 2
A1 Tehmeena Khan
YR 2017
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/4/2/146.abstract
AB In some healthcare systems, patients are cared for by single organ, or single system, specialists; this undeniably has a place in high-quality, effective patient care. A patient who is having a myocardial infarction would understandably want to be under the care of a cardiac specialist to ensure their treatment is effective, evidence based, and up to date. However, in the current climate of an ageing population, long-term chronic diseases and patients with multiple comorbidities, we are in need of generalist inpatient physicians too. After all, a frail, cognitively impaired, diabetic octogenarian with advanced renal impairment who is having an acute coronary syndrome is very different from a middle aged individual with an acute coronary syndrome. Hospitalist medicine in the USA provides this high-quality generalist inpatient medical care. This article explores the model at Rush University Medical Center in ­Chicago and any lessons we in the UK could learn from them.