This 45 page report includes policies and procedures to develop a practical and physician-friendly hospitalists program – designed to improve and streamline patient care from the ER through discharge and transitional care period. Credentialing criteria and example job description for hospitalist physicians, along with references and resources, are also included. This product is updated for 2007.

Table of Contents

• Definitions, introduction
• Utilization of hospital services
• Core competencies
• Objectives of a hospitalist program
• Primary physician concerns
• Utilization of hospital services by hospitalists
• Pediatric/Neonatal hospitalist programs
• Interactions between hospitalists and ED physicians
• Lessons learned (or should be learned)
• Starting a program - process example
• Laboratory Reports – failure to review and act on results
• Hospitalist Policy - example
• Intensivists
• Nocturnists
• Rapid Response Teams (RRT)
• Hospitalist program model in a SNF
• Hospitalist job descriptions
• Performance standards
• Hospitalist discharge dictation for medical record - responsibility
• Hospitalist - post-discharge transitional management of care
• Patient ‘handoffs’
• Position qualifications
• Co-management by hospitalists of surgical patients
• Pediatric Hospitalists
• Obstetrical Hospitalists ('Laborists')
• Education re: Hospitalist programs for Patients, Others
• Explanatory letter to patients re: hospitalist program
• Collecting charge data
• Compensation; Pay for Performance
• References
• Resources
• Web Sites, Hospitalist-related