Only 10-15 years old, hospital medicine is now one of the fasting growing specialties. Driving the steep growth curve are several notable trends, and as the need for hospitalists increases, it follows that openings for locum tenens hospitalists will also abound. If you are – or want to be – a locum tenens hospitalist, your chances for locating the perfect assignment, both now and in the future, look promising. Here’s why:
Expanded Role of Hospitalists
In addition to acting as the admitting clinician, the hospitalist is increasingly recognized as the coordinator of a patient’s care, facilitating the efficient delivery of diagnostic tests and other services in addition to collaborating with specialists, the patient’s primary care physician, and family members. This expanded role creates a greater degree of interaction with members of the medical, nursing, technical, and administrative staff – which highlights the benefit of having a manager responsible for streamlining a patient’s care from admission to discharge. Recognition that hospitalists add value is on the rise.
Increased Demand for Specialty Hospitalists
Hospitalists were once thought of as internists whose office was the hospital. Now, hospitals are recognizing the need to employ full-time specialists in surgery, neurology, orthopedics and ObGyn as hospitalists in order to improve patient care.
Board Certification for Hospitalists
A certification process for the specialty of hospital medicine is under consideration. Once implemented, it will give the hospitalist more credibility with patients, other members of the hospital staff and payers. Increased credibility facilitates a greater respect for hospitalists and their contribution to patient care and hospital operations in general.
Growing Interest in 24-Hour Hospitalist Presence
A growing number of hospitals report hiring hospitalists to cover afternoons and nights as well as the daytime shifts. Facilities – especially those without residents – will increasingly turn to hospitalists (and locum tenens hospitalists) to satisfy the need for 24-hour physician coverage.
Projected Physician Shortage
As the number of practicing physicians continues to decline, a shortage in every medical specialty, including hospital medicine, is increasingly apparent.
The net effect of these trends is to increase the demand for specialists in hospital medicine. As a result, the practicing – and aspiring – locum tenens hospitalist can look forward to an abundance of employment opportunities from which to choose for the next assignment. Even more exciting, however, will be the chance to help shape the bright future of a specialty that has bolted into a position of leadership and is likely to stay there for some time to come.
Interim Physicians has been advancing quality patient care by delivering top-notch short term physician staffing services since the inception of the locum tenens movement over thirty years ago. Find out more about their array of openings for locum tenens physicians at website.
