Meltzer and Chung - Emergence of Hospitalists

One of the main papers spoken about today during Professor Meltzer's talk is available below from the NBER series.

Coordination, Switching Costs and the Division of Labor in General Medicine: An Economic Explanation for the Emergence of Hospitalists in the United States

David O. Meltzer, Jeanette W. Chung NBER Working Paper No. 16040 Issued in May 2010 NBER Program(s):   HC   General medical care in the United States has historically been provided by physicians who care for their patients in both ambulatory and hospital settings. Care is now increasingly divided between physicians specializing in hospital care (hospitalists) and ambulatory-based care primary care physicians. We develop and find strong empirical support for a theoretical model of the division of labor in general medicine that views the use of hospitalists as balancing the costs of coordinating care across physicians in the hospitalist model against physicians’ costs switching between ambulatory and hospital settings in the traditional model. Our findings suggest opportunities to improve care.