A Hospitalist Movement? Where To?

Hospital care of children, coordinated by either a primary care pediatrician or a hospitalist specialist as the case dictates, may be the best approach to caring for children. The hospitalist movement, in which an inpatient specialist takes over care when a patient is hospitalized, is growing within adult medicine. In pediatrics, a similar system may improve inpatient care and reduce costs. The impact on pediatricians, who do not often care for inpatients, is unclear. Hospital specialists may decrease pediatrician services, or may valuably augment the care they provide their inpatients.