OBJECTIVES OF THE HOSPITALIST ELECTIVE

There is an increasing national demand for formally trained hospitalist physicians. But a hospitalist is more than a physician who spends a lot of time in the hospital. A review of the literature indicates that an expert hospitalist demonstrates the following competencies to a very high degree—teaching these competencies is the objective of this course:

· Understanding of how the process-of-care affects the management of acute care conditions

· Efficiency in management: timely ordering, transcription, and discharge planning

· Availability to patient, family, hospital staff, and community primary care physician

· Communication with the primary care physician during the hospital stay and on discharge

· Proficiency in evidence-based decision making, including extraction of relevant literature and application of diagnostic studies to estimate disease probabilities