title: The OB hospitalist and the risk manager: ready for prime time.
abstract: In 1996, Wachter and Goldman described a new model of care in which hospital-based physicians provided patients' inpatient care in lieu of the patient's primary physician.(1) They termed these physicians hospitalists. The hospitalist movement had taken hold, and by 1999, 65% of internists had hospitalists in their community and 28% reported using them for inpatient care.(2) In 2003, Louis Weinstein, in an article entitled "The Laborist: A New Focus of Practice for the Obstetrician"(3) advocated for the adoption of the hospitalist model to obstetrical care. In a 2010 study, of 28,545 members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) contacted in a national survey, 7,044 clinicians responded, which yielded a response rate of 25%. Of the respondents, 1,020 clinicians (15% of respondents, 3.6% of the entire sample) described themselves as obstetrics/gynecology hospitalists or laborists.(4) According to the web site www.obgynhospitalist.com, there are at least 115 hospitals in the country that utilize a laborist or OB hospitalist model of care.(5).
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, Portland, USA.
authors.forename: Larry
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Veltman
mesh_terms: D006740:Hospital Administrators; D020445:Hospitalists / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009775:Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Hospital; D016134:Organizational Policy; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D012308:Risk Management; D014481:United States