What Is a Hospitalist? Understanding Hospital Medicine

If you've been admitted to a hospital in recent years, there's a good chance your primary inpatient physician was a hospitalist — a specialist in hospital medicine — rather than your regular outpatient doctor. Hospital medicine is one of the fastest-growing medical specialties in the U.S., and understanding what hospitalists do explains a lot about how modern hospitals function.

What Hospitalists Do

Hospitalists manage the care of patients from admission to discharge. They coordinate with specialists, order and interpret tests, adjust medications, communicate with families, and develop discharge plans. Unlike outpatient physicians who see patients briefly between office appointments, hospitalists are physically present in the hospital and can respond to changes in a patient's condition quickly.

Why Hospital Medicine Grew

The shift toward hospitalists grew out of both quality and efficiency concerns. Outpatient physicians who admitted their own patients often couldn't be present in the hospital during the day to actively manage them. Hospitalists, who are present and focused exclusively on inpatient care, improve care continuity, reduce length of stay, and lower complication rates.

Hospitalists in NPPES

Hospitalists are registered in NPPES under internal medicine or hospital medicine taxonomy codes. Because they work in hospitals, their practice address in NPPES will reflect the hospital address. Browse internal medicine providers through the internal medicine directory and the specialty index for hospital medicine-specific codes.