Characteristics of the ideal hospitalist inpatient care program: perceptions of Canadian health system leaders

Abstract

Background Despite the growing prevalence of hospitalist programs in Canada, it is not clear what program features are deemed desirable by administrative and medical leaders who oversee them. We aimed to understand perceptions of a wide range of healthcare administrators and frontline providers about the implementation and necessary characteristics of a hospitalist service. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with a range of administrators, medical leaders and frontline providers across three hospital sites operated by an integrated health system in British Columbia, Canada. Results Most interviewees identified the hospitalist model as the ideal inpatient care service line, but identified a number of challenges. Interviewees identified the necessary features of an ideal hospitalist service to include considerations for program design, care and non-clinical processes, and alignment between workload and physician staffing. They also identified continuity of care as an important challenge, and underlined the importance of communication as an important enabler of implementation of a new hospitalist service. Conclusions Most hospital administrators and frontline providers in our study believed the hospitalist model resulted in improvements in clinical processes and work environment.

Five Tips for Becoming an Ideal General Hospitalist

“…General hospitalists need to have leadership roles in the community, hospital, and clinical team; they should lead efforts to identify, assess, and improve patient outcomes, resource use, cost-effectiveness, and quality of hospital care. 13 To improve their hospitals, general hospitalists are expected to manage negotiations, business analysis, and quality measurement. According to Kotter’s framework, both management and leadership are required concurrently, and the differences in the roles and task-achieving process of each are clearly defined.…”