Hospitalist medicine is already exploding. Surgery and OBs are also exploring this model. Robert Wachter talks about surgical hospitalists:

The surgical hospitalist model extends my original concept of a hospital-based generalist who offers full-time availability, the ability to personally handle a wide variety of problems and coordinate the care of others, and a focus on improving both the care of individual patients and hospital systems. Like all medical innovations, it is bringing out the usual naysayers and skeptics. But I say let’s give it a try, measure its effect on key outcomes, and then decide whether it is a better mousetrap. I’m guessing it is.