Number of malpractice claims per 100 physician coverage years for hospitalists, according to an analysis of 52,000 coded medical malpractice claims from 20 different malpractice insurance programs for injuries incurred between 1997 and 2011. Nonhospitalist internal medicine physicians had a rate 3.5 times greater, and emergency physicians had a rate seven times higher than hospitalists. An accompanying editorial in the Journal of Hospital Medicine calls this result, the first analysis of data specifically identifying hospitalists, surprising “because health systems utilizing hospitalists generally include features that might increase the risk for malpractice claims.”
Larry Beresford is a freelance writer in Alameda, Calif.