Lessons from across the Atlantic: an overview of hospitalist medicine in the USA

In some healthcare systems, patients are cared for by single organ, or single system, specialists; this undeniably has a place in high-quality, effective patient care. A patient who is having a myocardial infarction would understandably want to be under the care of a cardiac specialist to ensure their treatment is effective, evidence based, and up to date. However, in the current climate of an ageing population, long-term chronic diseases and patients with multiple comorbidities, we are in need of generalist inpatient physicians too. After all, a frail, cognitively impaired, diabetic octogenarian with advanced renal impairment who is having an acute coronary syndrome is very different from a middle aged individual with an acute coronary syndrome. Hospitalist medicine in the USA provides this high-quality generalist inpatient medical care. This article explores the model at Rush University Medical Center in -Chicago and any lessons we in the UK could learn from them.