Objectives: This study sought to uncover whether having a gastrointestinal (GI) hospitalist available during weekday daytime hours results in higher-quality medical care compared to care provided by a team of residents.
Methods: Our hospitalist GI team consisted of two gastroenterologists working weekday daytime hours and two physician assistants. The team of conventional care headed by thirteen professors, comprised twelve residents and eight physician assistants. We conducted a retrospective cohort study in South Korea between March 2 and December 9, 2020 The hospitalist team treated 528 patients, while the conventional care team treated 2,335. We assessed the medical parameters of length of stay (LOS), rates of in-hospital mortality, transfer to the intensive care unit, and readmission rate within 30 days. Furthermore, we gathered feedback from nurses working with both teams.
Results: The study found that there was no significant difference in LOS between infections (P = 0.422) and other GI diseases like bleeding (P = 0.226). There was no significant difference in the rates of in-hospital mortality (P = 0.865) and transfer to the intensive care unit (P = 0.486) between the two teams. However, the hospitalist team had notably lower readmission rates than the conventional care team (P = 0.002) as well as a lower unscheduled readmission rate (P = 0.046). Furthermore, the survey results indicated that nurses who worked with the hospitalist team had significantly better responses than those who worked with the conventional care team (P < 0.001).
Conclusions: This study indicates that having GI hospitalists work weekday daytime hours improves patient care, and treatment and reduces readmission rates.
Keywords: Hospitalist; care; gastrointestinal; readmission; schedule.