Volunteer Community Hospital Introduces Hospitalist Program

Martin, TN – Healthcare has come a long way from the days of house calls from your personal physician, black bag in hand.  Modern technology and medical advances have radically changed the delivery of healthcare.  As physicians seek to offer quality care to a growing number of patients, providing a personal touch to each patient in their practice is a challenge.

Volunteer Community Hospital (VCH) has recently expanded our commitment to your health.  On February 2, 2009, VCH introduced the Hospitalist Program. The VCH Hospitalist Program has three physicians who work as a team and are available at the hospital or on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

Hospitals and physicians across the country are turning to hospitalists to enhance physician’s accessibility, coordinate treatment, and provide seamless care to patients.  A hospitalist is a medical doctor who specializes in caring for the very kinds of medical conditions that need hospital care.

Hospitalists serve as valuable liaisons for both patients and providers.  Like a primary care doctor, hospitalists are trained in general internal medicine and other specialties.  They know the hospital’s specialists and departments well, and can expedite communication and treatment with other caregivers. 

One job of the hospitalist is to communicate with a patient’s primary care doctor as needed, particularly at admission and discharge.  Hospitalists can often shorten a patient’s stay and speed recovery by closely monitoring patients’ condition and making adjustments to the treatment plan.  Once the patient is discharged, the hospitalist transfers care back to the patient’s primary care provider.

Many hospitals across the country now have hospitalists on staff to provide consistency, stability and structure for patients, and manage the patient’s interaction with other care team members, as well as communication between the hospital staff and family members.

“One of our goals in providing hospital services is to support the physicians on our medical staff in the care of their patients,” shared Steve Westenhofer, CEO, “and making hospitalist staff available to our admitting physicians was a way to do that.  It is another way that we are working to improve your local medical care.”

For more information about services available at VCH, visit www.volunteercommunityhospital.com