Involving hospitalists in inpatient care improves patient outcomes, oncologist experience

Enlisting hospitalists in the co-management of patients with cancer reduced hospital length of stay, increased hospital capacity for new inpatients and reduced stress among oncologists, according to a study in Journal of Hospital Medicine.“Inpatient medicine has become increasingly complex over the last decade or so the patients are sicker than they ever were. “Inpatient medicine has become increasingly complex over the last decade or so the patients are sicker than they ever were, because we’re keeping more and more patients out of the hospital,” Kerin Adelson, MD, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer and chief quality officer at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at the time of the study, told Healio. “Solid tumor oncologists spend their time focused on the ambulatory practice of oncology, giving chemotherapy and other disease-modifying treatments. As their careers advance, their training in inpatient internal medicine becomes more distant.