SIU School of Medicine implements a new "hospitalist" program that increases hospitalized patients' access to a physician.

A new "hospitalist" program at SIU School of Medicine and St. John's Hospital in Springfield, gives patients access to in-house physicians 24 hours a day. Hospitalist programs are a growing trend around the country because they help ensure timely coordination of inpatient care says Dr. Christine Todd, a hospitalist physician and assistant professor of internal medicine at SIU. She explains how the program helps patients:

SOUND BITE: "... they get a doctor who is there during the day, and also has associates there during the night who can respond to their needs immediately, talk to their family members, talk to other doctors involved in their care and basically give them a lot of attention when they are inpatients."

The hospitalist program is especially helpful for physicians and patients in rural communities. The rural physician can send a patient to a hospitalist doctor who will take care of their patient while they are in the hospital. This allows the community physician to spend more time on their outpatient practices rather than traveling to a distant hospital. When the patient goes home, the home-town physician receives a complete report of care and treatment during the patient's hospital stay. Dr. Todd says the hospitalist physician communicates with the hometown physician at various times during the hospital stay.

SOUND BITE: ". . . when important things happen to patients in the hospital, like say when we make a major diagnosis of a terminal illness, or a patient decides to stop their therapy in the hospital, or we find out about a significant new diagnosis in the hospital, then we always communicate with the primary care provider. . ."

Hospitalist programs have been well received by patients and families because they like having a doctor who comes to see them more than once a day and has more time to answer their questions.