St. John’s Hospital starts Hospitalist Program
by St. John’s Lutheran Hospital
March 3, 2011
As a part of their continuing effort to improve patient, employee, and physician satisfaction, St. John’s Lutheran Hospital in Libby will be adopting a Hospitalist Program beginning March 4, 2011.
A hospitalist is a physician who focuses on the practice of medicine from the in-patient side. Most hospitalists are internal medicine or family practice physicians who have undergone the same training as other doctors, including medical school, residency training, and a board certification examination. The only difference is that hospitalists have chosen not to practice traditional out-patient medicine due to personal preferences.
There are many advantages of hospitalists in the care of hospitalized patients. One advantage is that hospitalists’ have more expertise in caring for complicated hospitalized patients on a daily basis. They are also more available to meet with family members, follow-up on tests, answer staff and nurse’s questions, and simply to deal with the array of problems that may arise. In many instances, hospitalists may see a patient more than once a day to assure that care is going according to plan.
At the October Board of Trustee and Physician retreat last October, the decision was made to begin recruiting for two hospitalists for St. John’s. "It is important to note that this is a discussion that the board and physicians have been visiting for quite some time," stated Bill Patten, CEO at St. John’s. "They have explored the positives and negatives of this program, and after much discussion and deliberation feel that this is the right move for the future of St. John’s, its patients, and our local physicians."
Understanding that recruiting two more physicians to the area may take some time, St. John’s and local physicians have been working together to develop an interim hospitalist program using our current local family practice and internal medicine physicians. The coverage for this interim program will begin on March 4.
Under this new program, the physician who is the "hospitalist on call" will see all patients on the inpatient floor at St. John’s for blocks of 3 to 7 days at a time. "We understand that some patients will be concerned about seeing a physician that is different from their own primary care physician," added Patten. "But this program is not all that different from the current weekend on call schedule where a patient might see their own doctor on Friday, then see the on call physician Saturday and Sunday."
Billing to the patient will not change, and neither this interim program, nor the future hospitalist program, will cost the patients of St. John’s any more money than they are currently being charged. It is also important to note that clinic physicians can still follow their patients at St. John’s if they so choose.
"We are very anxious to get started with the new hospitalist program," stated Jana Hall, MD, Medical Director of the NW Community Health Center and Chief of Staff at St. John’s. "The program is popular because it benefits both patient and physician. Patients and their families will experience more continuity of care because the hospitalist acts as the liaison between the primary care physician, nurses, family members, and all points of care while the patient is hospitalized. The only hand-off would be when the hospitalist changes shifts. The physicians benefit because they can spend more time in their practices and private lives enjoying a little of that free time away from practicing medicine, which improves their quality of life and helps prevent burn-out. We are all excited to get the program up and rolling."
The physicians aren’t the only folks pleased to see this new program begin. "This is an exciting change for our community," added Patten. "Hospitalists really are the future in the specialization of healthcare. As hospital stays get shorter, the need for focused specialized hospitalist care goes up. It’s very similar to the type of specialized care that patients expect when they visit our emergency rooms. At St. John’s, we are proud to be taking the appropriate steps to bring that quality of specialized care to the people of South Lincoln County."
Related Links:
www.sjlh.org St. John’s Lutheran Hospital
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