Medical Care of Hospitalized Patients
We have added hospitalists to our staff as one more initiative in making a stay at OSF Little Company of Mary Hospital as pain-free as possible.
Hospitalists practice hospital medicine, which is the discipline concerned with the general medical care of hospitalized patients. Patients who are admitted through the Emergency Department (ED) and do not have a primary care physician are usually seen by a hospitalist for the duration of their stay with us.
About our Hospitalists
The term "hospitalist" was first used by Dr. Robert Wachter in an article written in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1996.
Hospital medicine, like emergency medicine, is a specialty organized around a site of care (the hospital), rather than an organ (like cardiology), a disease (like oncology), or a patient's age (like pediatrics).
However, unlike medical specialists in the emergency department or critical care units, most hospitalists help manage patients throughout the continuum of hospital care, often seeing patients in the ED, admitting them to inpatient units, following them as necessary into the critical care unit, and organizing post-acute care.
Our first hospitalist program has been in place since 1998 and has been successful in improving patient care.
Currently, OSF Little Company of Mary Hospitalists treat Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and OB/Gyn patients.