Hospitalist care

The term hospitalist was first used by Dr Robert Wachter in 1996 in an article entitled “The Emerging Role of ‘Hospitalists’ in the American Health Care System.”1 The 2007 National Physician Survey (NPS) results confirm that hospitalists have extended from the United States into Canada.

The NPS defined a hospitalist as the most responsible physician for patients in hospital, without responsibility for care postdischarge. Here are a few noteworthy points:

Twenty-three percent of FPs in Canada provide hospitalist care.
A greater percentage of male and younger FPs provide hospitalist care (P < .001) (Figure 1).
A greater percentage of FPs in Prince Edward Island provide hospitalist care, followed by FPs in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan (Figure 1).
Family physicians providing hospitalist care are less likely to be paid by fee-for-service than FPs not providing hospitalist care. (Thirty-six percent of hospitalists receive at least 90% of their income from fee-for-service vs 54% of nonhospitalist FPs.) Blended payment methods are more common among FPs providing hospitalist care than FPs not providing this type of care (46% vs 30%).
Looking at future practice patterns, 45% of second-year family medicine residents indicated that they intend to provide hospitalist care.

Figure 1

Percentage of family physicians providing hospitalist care by sex, age, and province

The NPS is a collaborative project of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Medical Association, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Additional results are available at www.nationalphysiciansurvey.ca. If you would like the opportunity to develop and write a future Fast Fact using the NPS results, please contact Sarah Scott, National Physician Survey and Janus Project Coordinator, at 800 387–6197, extension 289, or sks{at}cfpc.ca.