Pathways: Hospitalist Program Focuses on Patient Care
Introduction
The Department of Internal Medicine offers a robust academic hospitalist service at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, Peoria. This service combines both patient care with academic teaching and is known as University Hospital and Teaching Service (or UHATS). In the clinical setting, hospitalists provide comprehensive medical care to patients helping to manage complex medical conditions and coordinate care with other members of the healthcare team. These same faculty are actively involved in the education and training of students, residents and fellows. Their teaching in the clinical setting involves supervising trainees in the hospital and guiding their learning through patient encounters.
In recent years, the department’s hospitalist services have expanded to include some niche areas in hospital medicine, allowing for more focused and specialized care for improved efficiency and enhanced patient care.
One new area of focus is the point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) which is use of medical imaging at the patient’s bedside. Performed by the treating hospitalist, POCUS provides real-time images to aid in diagnosis and treatment planning while cutting down on the number of procedures going to interventional radiology. The growth of POCUS allows for faster diagnosis of some conditions and decreases length of hospital stay. Another efficiency is alleviating the demands on interventional radiology and increasing access to radiology care for other patients.
The oncology hospitalist program provides Internal Medicine faculty to manage patients who have cancer who are in the hospital for an underlying illness or complication. Examples may include pneumonia, cancer pain or complications from chemotherapy. Oncology hospitalists provide comprehensive, coordinated and multidisciplinary care for inpatient cancer patients. These hospitalists often collaborate with oncologists, surgeons and other specialists in managing patient care.
Started in 2021, the department also provides consultative service within the hospitalist program which provides faculty physicians who can focus on the medical issues for cardiovascular surgery patients who may be hospitalized for bypass surgery or heart transplant, for example. The hospitalist focuses on medical matters such as diabetes management or blood pressure management while they are recovering from cardiovascular surgery.
This article is part of the Summer 2025 issue of Pathways magazine.