Conference on the hospitalists and provider-patient relationship

The Foundation's program, Strengthening the Patient-Provider Relationship in a Changing Health Care Environment, was designed to support research and convening activities that examine the patient-provider relationship under the growing influence of managed care.The traditional American model for hospital care, in which primary care providers (PCPs) managed their own patients in the hospital, is quickly being replaced by a new model in which inpatients are cared for by hospital-based physicians, a group called "hospitalists." The hospitalist model has a number of potential advantages over the traditional PCP-based model for hospital care, including: (1) hospitalists can become expert in both clinical and logistical aspects of increasingly complex hospital care; (2) hospitalists can be available to patients, families, and consultants throughout the day; (3) hospitalists are more apt to participate in inpatient quality improvement activities; and (4) hospitalists free PCPs to become more available to their patients in the office setting. On the other hand, the hospitalist movement has raised a number of concerns. One of the most important is the extent to which the discontinuity between office and hospital may adversely influence the patient-provider relationship. Any compromise in this relationship is problematic. This grant provides funds for a two-day conference to be held in the fall 1999 to address the patient-provider relationship under hospitalists. Highlighting the conference will be best practices already in use (whether in hospitalist systems, in other specialties such as emergency medicine or obstetrics, or in other countries), as well as to articulate a research and policy agenda for the future.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $176,368.00

Awarded on: 12/8/1998

Time frame: 1/1/1999 - 5/14/2001

Grant Number: 35842