Children's Hospital Inpatient Services (CHIPS)
For health professionals
It's predicted that, by 2010, hospitalist medicine will be the largest specialty in medicine. Nationally, Children's Hospital Inpatient Service (CHIPS) is one of the true leaders in the pediatric hospitalist movement.
Background
Created in 1998, CHIPS was one of the first pediatric hospitalist programs in the United States. CHIPS provides full-time, inpatient general pediatric coverage for community physicians who prefer to have a Boston Children's Hospital attending physician care for their patients while they are hospitalized at Children's. CHIPS is part of the Division of General Pediatrics.
CHIPS is staffed by pediatric hospitalists who provide referring physicians with timely updates on their patients and are available by page to discuss patient issues. Furthermore, our team members are available for consultations. The CHIPS program is committed to outstanding clinical care of the hospitalized general pediatric patient, education of our housestaff and medical students, performing clinical research in the growing field of pediatric hospital medicine and communication with our referring providers.
Since its inception, the patient volume on this service has steadily grown, and now accounts for more than 85 percent of general pediatric admissions.
CHIPS and professional leadership
CHIPS is the leading U.S. pediatric hospitalist program with regard to research focusing on the structure, processes and outcomes of pediatric hospital care.
- Dr. Vincent Chiang, MD, Chief of Inpatient Services, co-authored what is widely considered the definitive textbook on pediatric hospital medicine (Comprehensive Pediatric Hospital Medicine, 2007, with Lisa Zaoutis, MD).
- CHIPS members hold key leadership positions with the Society of Hospital Medicine; the Academic Pediatric Association; and the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings Network (PRIS), chaired by Christopher Landrigan, MD, MPH of Children's.
- Children's is home to the first Fellowship in Pediatric Hospital Medicine in the country.
Our program is well-suited to physicians interested in hospitalist medicine within an academic setting, with areas of focus including outcomes, research, improving systems and processes of care, reducing errors, and medical education. Children's is also home to a hospitalist program for those interested in community-based hospital care, housed within our Division of Emergency Medicine and led by Karen Gruskin, MD.
To learn more about CHIPS, please contact Vincent Chiang, MD, Chief of Inpatient Services, at 617-355-7584.
