Arch Intern Med -- Abstract: Hospitalists and the Quality of Care in Hospitals, Aug 10/24, 2009, López et al. 169 (15): 1389You are seeing this message because your Web browser does not support basic Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing and what you can do to make your experience on this site better. Select Journal or Resource -------------------------- JAMA & Archives Home JAMA Archives of Dermatology Facial Plastic Surgery Family Medicine (1992-2000) General Psychiatry Internal Medicine Neurology Neurology and Psychiatry (1919-1959) Ophthalmology Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine Surgery JAMA-français JAMA & Archives CME Calendar of Events JAMA Career Center For The Media JAMAevidence Peer Review Congress Student JAMA (1998-2004) ABOUT ARCHIVES Search: Advanced Search Welcome | My Account | E-mail Alerts | Access Rights | Sign In Home Current Issue Past Issues Topic Collections CME Submit Subscribe Help Information for: Authors/Reviewers Readers Institutions/Libraries Subscription Agents News Media Job Seekers/Employers Advertisers Vol. 169 No. 15, Aug 10/24, 2009 Archives • Online Features Original Investigation This Article •Full text •PDF •Send to a friend •Save in My Folder •Save to citation manager •Permissions Citing Articles •Citation map •Citing articles on HighWire •Contact me when this article is cited Related Content •Related articles •Similar articles in this journal Topic Collections •Medical Practice, Other •Quality of Care, Other •Prognosis/ Outcomes •Health Care Reform •Alert me on articles by topic Social Bookmarking What's this? HEALTH CARE REFORM Hospitalists and the Quality of Care in Hospitals Lenny López, MD, MPH; Leroi S. Hicks, MD, MPH; Amy P. Cohen, BA; Sylvia McKean, MD; Joel S. Weissman, PhD Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(15):1389-1394. Background Little is known about the link between hospitalists and performance on hospital-level quality indicators. Methods From October 1, 2005, through September 31, 2006, we linked the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) data to the American Hospital Association data on the presence of hospitalists. Main outcome measures included composite measurements of hospital-level quality of care for 3 conditions (acute myocardial infarction [AMI], congestive heart failure [CHF], and pneumonia) and 2 dimensions of care (treatment and diagnosis, as well as counseling and prevention). We fitted a series of logistic regression models to examine the relationship between hospitalists and overall quality of care for each condition, controlling for all other hospital characteristics. Results Of 3619 hospitals reporting HQA data, 1461 (40.4%) had hospitalists. Hospitals with hospitalists tended to be large, private, not-for-profit, teaching institutions located in the southern United States. The mean unadjusted composite scores were higher for hospitals with hospitalists vs those with no hospitalists for all 3 conditions (93% vs 86% for AMI, 82% vs 72% for CHF, and 75% vs 71% for pneumonia) and both dimensions of care (87% vs 77% for treatment and diagnosis and 75% vs 66% for counseling and prevention) (P < .001 for all comparisons). After multivariable adjustment, hospitals with hospitalists continued to perform significantly better than those without hospitalists across all composite scores except for CHF. Conclusion Hospitals with hospitalists were associated with better performance on HQA indicators for AMI, pneumonia, and the domains of overall disease treatment and diagnosis, as well as counseling and prevention. Author Affiliations: Institute for Health Policy and Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital (Drs López and Weissman), Division of General Internal Medicine and Academic Hospitalist Program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Drs López, Hicks, and McKean), Harvard School of Public Health (Ms Cohen and Dr Weissman), Department of Health Care Policy (Drs Hicks and Weissman) and Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (Drs López, Hicks, McKean, and Weissman), Boston, Massachusetts. Dr Weissman is currently at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services while on leave from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us Digg Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? RELATED ARTICLES In This Issue of Archives of Internal Medicine Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(15):1350. FULL TEXT Do Hospitalists Improve Quality? Robert M. Centor and Benjamin B. Taylor Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(15):1351-1352. EXTRACT | FULL TEXT THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES Do Hospitalists Improve Quality? Centor and Taylor Arch Intern Med 2009;169:1351-1352. FULL TEXT HOME | CURRENT ISSUE | PAST ISSUES | TOPIC COLLECTIONS | CME | SUBMIT | SUBSCRIBE | HELP CONDITIONS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY | CONTACT US | SITE MAP © 2009 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.