Survey of Chiefs of General Internal Medicine on Academic Hospitalist programs
October 2006
ACGIM in conjunction with the SGIM Academic Hospitalists Task Force as chaired by Karen DeSalvo, Vikas Parekh and Bradley Sharpe developed a survey as a way to learn more about the structure of hospitalist programs and the role of hospitalists within their workplace. The survey was sent to the ACGIM Listserve consisting of 110 members.
In all, 27 chiefs responded to the survey with 25 reporting an academic hospitalist program. The median size of the hospitalist programs was 11.5 [range 1-50]. The size of academic hospitalist units was only weakly correlated with the size of the entire GIM section. Mean years on the academic hospitalist faculty was 3.6yrs [range 1-12] compared with 8.9yrs [range 1-16] for their entire faculty group.
The average starting salary was $134,720 [SD + $13,642; range $110,000-$165,000]. Direct salary support from the hospital was the source of funding for 50% of academic hospitalist programs, with other funding received from professional services agreements with the hospital (27%), deficit coverage from the hospitals (27%), deficit coverage from the university (15%) and none from an endowment.
The principal role for most programs was precepting on the inpatient ward service. 70% of programs reported having academic hospitalists cover a non-teaching service.
Duties expected in addition to attending on the teaching ward service included: Educational roles (89%) Inpatient consultation (85%) Hospital committees (84%) Quality improvement roles (81%) Pre-operative assessments in the inpatient setting (58%) Research (54%) Pre-operative assessments in the inpatient and outpatient setting (50%) Precepting in resident clinic (27%) Pre-operative assessments in the outpatient setting (23%) Personal clinic (8%) Hospital discharge clinic (8%)
Staff support available for the academic hospitalist groups included: Mid-levels (29%) Discharge planners (36%) Service-based social worker (55%) Case manager (55%) Administrative assistant (42%) Research assistant (7%)
Most section chiefs planned to grow their academic hospitalist sections (81%) and thought the funding outlook looked positive (62%). Only 3 programs reported that there was consideration that their academic hospitalist sections might break off from the division of GIM.