MHP to Start Hospitalist Program
Hospitalist Program
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Mahaska Health Partnership is making some changes to the way it’s coordinating patient care. It’s called a hospitalist program, and as CRI’s Aaron Riggs explains, MHP says it will benefit both the patient and the hospital.
Primary care physicians see patients every day – both in their clinic offices at the Family Medical Center and in patient rooms at Hospital. And since a doctor can’t be in two places at the same time- while they’re taking care of a patient at the hospital, their clinic office may have patients waiting to be seen.
“And that’s what’s hard about the current system. Is I have a clinic full of patients and yet I have sick people in the hospital, and where do I go? Who do I take care of first?”, says Anne Whitis M.D.
MHP wants to solve that problem with the introduction of a new Hospitalist program.
“it’s a form of medicine that’s new to us but is common in many other hospitals. And what that involves is that when people are admitted to the hospital there is one doctor that takes care of them, and that job is taking care of people in the hospital there’s no clinic responsibilities”, says Whitis.
And that means primary care physicians at the Family Medical Center can focus more on their outpatient practice. For patients, that could mean less time sitting in the waiting room.
“They will be able to fit in more patients and they won’t have all those emergencies where they have to run over to the hospital, disrupt the schedule and take care of someone who’s acutely ill”, says Whitis.
And on the hospital side, the designated hospitalist will focus strictly on patients who are admitted to the hospital.
“We’ll see them throughout the day and be available 24/7 if there are problems. So, we won’t have to compete with patients in the clinic taking our time and trying to be in two places at once”, says Whitis.
But that doesn’t mean the Family Doctor is removed entirely from the patient’s care in the hospital. The MHP hospitalist will communicate with family doctors about any changes in condition or treatment.
“Let them know what changes there are on their medications, make sure they know, the critical things that have happened during that hospitalization”, says Whitis.
While MHP expects the Hosptilalist program to be beneficial for the patients, they also hope it will solve an issue they’ve been struggling with for several years.
“Its become very apparent to us over the last 2 years as we’ve tried to recruit primary care providers that a lot of the physicians presently coming out of residency programs are really interested in more of a structured out-patient primarily practice”, says Jay Christensen MHP CEO.
Christensen hopes the program will allow family doctors to have more of a life outside of the office, making a career in Oskaloosa attractive to quality doctors.
“We’ve had a lot of requests saying well how much will I be on call how much will I have to be available at the hospital, so as we looked at recruiting, it became apparent to us that this is one of the things that we were going to have to be able to offer to get the top-notch recruits we are lookin for”, says Christensen.
The new program goes into effect on January 1st and will be overseen by Anne Whitis. Three current MHP physicians will join the Hospitalist staff, something Christenson says will make the program a success. (
“I think that gives us immediate credibility to the program both it’s needs and the quality of the people who are going to provide this service, and I think without that it would be very difficult to get the program started, so we’re really excited to move forward with some of our gold standard physicians”, says Christensen.
According to the Iowa Hospital Association, 27 Iowa hospitals were using hospitalist programs last year. The majority were in larger cities, including Des Moines and Iowa City. The hospital in Grinnell has used a hospitalist program for four years, while Ottumwa’s program has been in place for one year.
