The Declining Presence of Family Physicians in Hospital-Based Care

Anuradha Jetty; Yalda Jabbarpour; Stephen Petterson; Aimee Eden; Andrew Bazemore

doi:10.3122/jabfm.2019.06.190152

The Declining Presence of Family Physicians in Hospital-Based Care

J Am Board Fam Med. 2019 Nov-Dec;32(6):771-772. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2019.06.190152.

Authors

Anuradha Jetty¹, Yalda Jabbarpour², Stephen Petterson², Aimee Eden², Andrew Bazemore²

Affiliations

¹ From the Robert Graham Center, Washington, DC (AJ, YJ, SP, AB); The American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY (AE). ajetty@aafp.org.
² From the Robert Graham Center, Washington, DC (AJ, YJ, SP, AB); The American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY (AE).

PMID: 31704744
DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2019.06.190152

Abstract

Despite training to provide care across the continuum of health delivery settings, the proportion of family physicians (FPs) reporting inpatient care has decreased by 26% between 2013 and 2017, leaving approximately 1 in 4 of FPs practicing hospital medicine in 2017. Policy makers, payers, and leaders in medical education should closely track the impact of these trends, given previous evidence associating better cost and utilization outcomes with broader scope of practice.

Keywords: Continuity of Patient Care; Family Physicians; Health Policy; Hospital Medicine; Inpatients; Leadership; Medical Education; Pay for Performance; Residency.

MeSH terms

Continuity of Patient Care / organization & administration*
Hospital-Physician Relations*
Hospitals / statistics & numerical data
Hospitals / trends*
Humans
Physicians, Family / organization & administration
Physicians, Family / statistics & numerical data
Physicians, Family / trends*
Practice Patterns, Physicians' / organization & administration
Practice Patterns, Physicians' / statistics & numerical data
Practice Patterns, Physicians' / trends*
Self Report / statistics & numerical data