the Hospital of Today - Olympic Medical Center

(At right) Dr. Carlos Palacio is one
of 10 expert hospitalists at Olympic
Medical Center. He is also one of two
hospitalists fluent in Spanish – important
in serving our Hispanic patients.
(Below) Dr. Ianir Divinsky, seen here with
Christa Scott, RN, joined the hospitalist
team this spring.
The History
of HOSPITALISTS
Olympic Medical Center was at the
cutting edge of innovation and one of the
first rural hospitals in the U.S. to form a
hospitalist team in 2000, emphasizing the
need to improve patient safety with
24-hour in-hospital physicians.
The hospitalist subspecialty took off
nationally around 1996 when Dr. Robert
Wachter and Dr. Lee Goldman first used
the term in a New England Journal of
Medicine article. Since then, the number
of hospitalists has increased dramatically.
In 1999, shortly before Olympic Medical
started its program, about 1,500
physicians practiced as hospitalists. Today,
approximately 20,000 hospitalists practice
in the United States, and researchers
predict there will be 30,000 by the
end of 2010.
What Is a
Hospitalist?
At Olympic Medical Center, physicians known as hospitalists are in-house
24 hours a day, seven days a week to care for hospital patients.
To
better meet the needs of
hospital patients, Olympic
Medical Center developed a
dedicated hospitalist program 10 years
ago. While many may not be familiar
with the term “hospitalist,” these are
physicians who work solely in the
hospital caring for hospitalized patients.
“Over the past 15 years,
hospitalists have been the fastest-
growing subspecialty of medicine,”
says Edward Gacek, MD, hospitalist
and board-certified internist at
Olympic Medical. “Because as
hospitalists we don’t have outside
practices and are based only in the
hospital, we can devote all of our
time and attention to caring for
hospitalized patients.”
4 www.olympicmedical.org