The Seoul National University Hospital’s introduction of hospitalist system has lowered the chance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on patients and their mortality rate, an SNU professor said.

Hospitalists are physicians specializing in treating hospitalized patients to minimize hospital visits by other physicians.

Kang Hyun-jae, a professor of internal medicine at SNU’s College of Medicine, released a report, “CPR incidence and mortality rates of hospitalized patients before and after the adoption of hospitalists at the SNUH’s internal medicine ward,” at an academic conference hosted by the Korean Association of Internal Medicine at the Grand Hilton Hotel in Seoul, Saturday.

SNUH started recruiting hospitalists at the internal medicine department in January and expanded the number to five in March. The five hospitalists work in shifts -- two working during the day, one during the night, and the rest two taking the day off.

According to Kang, the CPR incidence rate of the total hospitalized patients in the internal medicine department was 0.09 percent, whereas that of patients cared by hospitalists was lower at 0.02 percent. After the hiring of hospitalists, the mortality rate of the total patients hospitalized between January and February fell by 8 percent from a year earlier. The mortality rate between March and June with the five hospitalists went down by 18 percent from the same period a year earlier, he said.

“Although there are more patients with severer acuteness in the ward where hospitalists work, the CPR incidence was lower among them than that of the general ward,” Kang said. “This shows that hospitalists are properly treating patients.”

Kang noted that hospitalists’ right treatments also helped lower the mortality rate of the patients at the internal medicine ward.

“Before hospitalists came, monthly and quarterly mortality rates were strikingly similar. But after they came in January, the rates were on the declining track. A hospital renovation partly affected how patients were hospitalized at the emergency room, but hospitalists played a positive role,” he said.

cks@docdocdoc.co.kr

<© Korea Biomedical Review, All rights reserved.>