Twenty years after hospitalists started shaking up hospital-based healthcare by orchestrating multiple aspects of patient care, a post-acute care subspecialty is the fastest-growing segment of hospitalist medicine, Medscape reported.
Post-acute care hospitalists, also called "subacutists," "transitionalists" or "SNFists" (those working in skilled nursing facilities), are on the rise as hospitals try different strategies to reduce potentially expensive readmissions of Medicare patients, according to the article. In some cases, subacutists see patients two or three times after discharge in special postdischarge clinics.
A recent poll conducted by Today's Hospitalist found that 58 percent of hospitalists believed they should work in postacute settings--but the rest disagreed.
Meanwhile, another growing area for hospitalists is in labor and delivery, FierceHealthcare previously reported. About 250 U.S. hospitals have hired "laborists" as of last year, compared with only 10 a decade earlier. The laborists deliver babies and handle OB-GYN emergencies instead of on-call private practice obstetricians.
To learn more:
- here's the Medscape article