Patients under care of 1st-year hospitalists face higher 30-day, in-hospital mortality rates

Just one year of experience for a new physician can reduce patient mortality in hospitals, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Compared to patients cared for by second-year hospitalists, those supervised by first-year hospitalists demonstrated higher 30-day mortality (10.5 percenter vs. 9.97 percent) and higher in-hospital mortality (3.33 percent vs. 2.96 percent). For both measures, there was no significant difference between second-year professionals and those with additional years of experience.

Lead researcher James Goodwin, MD, of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and colleagues said there are possible explanations other than inexperience for their findings.

“Less experienced hospitalists might be assigned less stable patients,” they wrote. “Working in a new hospital with an unfamiliar environment might contribute to the excess mortality associated with first year hospitalists. Hospitalists might become better at coding diagnoses with experience, resulting in artificially lower adjusted mortality for their patients.”

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Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.

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