Home Poll How many hospitalists work outside the wards?

How many hospitalists work outside the wards?

July 2013

Published in the July 2013 issue of Today’s Hospitalist

HOSPITALISTS ARE best known for their presence in hospital wards, but that’s not the only place they work. According to data from the 2012 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, about one-third of hospitalists say they work outside of the wards, with the most popular locations being outpatient practices and skilled nursing facilities.

Here’s a look at where hospitalists can be found when they’re not working on the wards.

Who works where?
Of the 36% of all full-time hospitalists who reported doing some work outside of the wards, almost 9% said they work in the primary care setting and 7.5% work in skilled nursing facilities. Another 6% work in long-term acute care settings, about 6% work in hospice and 4.8% of respondents work in a post-discharge clinic.

Our data show that hospitalists working in smaller groups are more likely to work outside of the wards, and so are hospitalists who see fewer patients. In terms of geography, hospitalists in the Midwest and Southwest are also more likely to leave the wards when working.

Gender differences also shake out: While only 6.9% of fulltime male hospitalists report also working in primary care, for instance, that’s the case for 11.3% of full-time female hospitalists. Hospitalists also reported differences by employment model. Close to 40% (39.3%) of those who work with a multispecialty/primary care group say they do at least some of their work off the floors. That percentage drops to only 16.3% of hospitalists who work for national hospitalist management companies.

Differences by specialty
Our data show that pediatric hospitalists are much more likely to work outside of the wards. More than half (51%) of pediatric hospitalists work outside of the wards, compared to only 32% of adult hospitalists.

One of the biggest differences between pediatric and adult hospitalists is where they work outside of the wards. While 19% of pediatric hospitalists reported working in the ED, only 2% of adult hospitalists work there. And almost twice as many pediatric hospitalists work in primary care (13.5%) as adult hospitalists (6.8%).

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