Preliminary Assessment of a Vascular Surgery Hospitalist Program

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

7-1-2026

Publication Title

J Vasc Surg

Keywords

adult, aging, blood vessel injury, conference abstract, consultation, emergency ward, female, group practice, human, incidence, major clinical study, male, operating room, private practice, retirement, surgery, teaching hospital, vascular surgeon, vascular surgery, vascularization

Abstract

Objectives: Workforce adequacy in vascular surgery is predicted to decrease significantly by 2037 due to demographic shift toward an aging population with increasing incidence of vascular disease, but without increase in the supply of vascular surgeons (VS). A preliminary assessment of incorporating a vascular surgery hospitalist program in a full-time hospital-employed practice for a VS in the final phase of his career was studied. Methods: From January 1 to June 30, 2025, the vascular surgery service at our 430-bed teaching Hospital was staffed by five VS (two full-time employed hospital-based group practice, three in private practice). Six months prior to a planned retirement of a full-time employed VS, a third employed VS joined the practice from July 1, 2025. A hospitalist VS program was initiated 6 months prior to retirement of the full-time employed VS (July 1-December 31, 2025). The hospitalist VS attended all in-hospital vascular consultations, performed endovascular and open reconstructions for in-house patients, and provided emergent operating room consult for iatrogenic vascular injuries incurred during nonvascular operations. The hospitalist VS was not assigned to the emergency room or clinic responsibilities. The relative value units (RVUs) of the entire employed group and the hospitalist VS were calculated. The interval from the time of consult request to the evaluation was recorded and compared for two 6- month intervals (group A, without hospitalist program—January 1 to June 2025; and group B, with the hospitalist program—July 1 to December 2025). The Student t test was used for comparison. Results: The time interval from a consult request to evaluation in group A was 16 ± 6 hours in group A (144 consultations) and 1.0 ± 0.5 hours in group B (152 consultations; P = .001). In group A, RVUs generated by two full-time VS were 8566.8 and in group B, RVUs generated with three full-time VS was 9667.9. The hospitalist VS contributed 2826.4 RVUs (29.4%) Conclusions: A hospitalist VS contributed adequate RVUs in a hospital-based group practice. There was a significant improvement in the time interval from initiation of the consult to the evaluation during the hospitalist program. This program enabled the other two full-time VS attend to their regular schedule without interruption. Further studies to assess the value of this program in improving the workforce adequacy by incorporating a VS hospitalist program for VS approaching retirement need to be considered.

Volume

84

Issue

1

First Page

e272

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