The WashU Medicine Division of Hospital Medicine was formed through a collaboration between Mark Thoelke, MD and John Lynch, MD in 2000, making it one of the first in the nation. The division has grown from five physicians to more than 120 physicians and allied clinicians. We now provide care for over 400 patients hospitalized at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH) and Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital (BJWCH) together.
The division faculty are integral to the educational mission of the WashU Medicine Department of Medicine and School of Medicine, providing attending coverage for the Firm (the internal medicine teaching service at WashU School of Medicine/ Barnes-Jewish Hospital) service, the Medicine Consult Service, and the Procedure Service. Hospitalists are also involved in teaching medical students. We actively pursue quality improvement efforts surrounding hospitalized patient care at BJH. Our growing research program with nearly $300,000 in grants in the past 2 years, is undertaking projects in care transitions, use of machine learning to assess patients, detecting delirium and determining etiology, and training hospitalists in POCUS.