National Hospitalist Day

March 5th is National Hospitalist Day and we want to honor our hospitalists who manage patients’ care throughout their inpatient stay and have been proven to reduce readmissions while also serving as leaders in quality improvement and patient safety. Hospitalists include physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and practice administrators and today there are more than 60,000 hospitalists nationwide.

Thank you to all our Department of Medicine hospitalists!

Hospital Medicine

The rapid growth in the number of hospitalists over the past two decades — from a few hundred in 1996 to more than 50,000 in 2016 — was fueled by managed care’s demands for greater efficiency and by a concern over the high rates of medical errors at hospitals. From its origins, hospital medicine has been dedicated to making hospitals more efficient and safer places. The fastest-growing medical specialty, hospital medicine now has its own society, boards, and fellowships.

“Hospital medicine is here to stay. We have demonstrated improvements across the nation in patient safety, throughput, increased quality at a decreased cost, and it’s a very good thing that is happening to the world of medicine,” says Michael M. Hawkins, M.D.

Read More: “Growing Up Fast: Hospital medicine comes into its own", Progress Notes, Spring 2017

Society of Hospital Medicine

Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is the leading medical society for Hospitalists with 19,000 members, which serves to improve the care of hospitalized patients through education, research, quality improvement, and advocacy. 

Dr. Danielle Scheurer, professor, Division of General Internal Medicine currently serves as the president-elect of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) for the 2019-2020 term and will serve as president during the 2020-2021 term.

Learn more about the hospital medicine specialty and how hospitalists are transforming patient care by visiting the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) website.