Full clinical departments of family practice: their relationship to hospital privileges in university hospitals.

All 52 family practice residency programs that hospitalize patients at a university hospital were surveyed to determine how many have full clinical departments of family practice and what effect having a full clinical department has on hospital privileges. A full clinical department is defined as one in which all hospital privileges for family physicians are reviewed and recommended by the family practice department without need for review by other specialties, even when the requested privileges overlap with another specialty. Responses were received from 100 percent of the surveyed hospitals. At 16 hospitals (30.8 percent) there is a full clinical department of family practice. When these hospitals were compared with the 36 (69.2 percent) at which there is no full clinical department, it was found that in every area of patient care, hospital privileges for family physicians are more extensive at hospitals with full clinical departments. The American Academy of Family Physicians is currently promoting the formation of full clinical departments of family practice as a method for improving hospital privileges for its members. The results of this study suggest that promoting the formation of full clinical departments will be an effective intervention.