ST. LOUIS, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- IPC, the nation’s foremost hospitalist company, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Parkland Health Center in Farmington, Missouri, to provide a broad range of inpatient services at that 130-bed facility. These services include coverage for all unassigned patients in the emergency department, medical management for geropsychiatric patients, and consultations for sub-specialists along with inpatient management for patients of referring physicians.
Parkland Health Center is a fully owned system member of BJC HealthCare. Currently, IPC provides hospitalist programs at three other BJC hospitals in the greater St. Louis area. IPC currently employs 33 physicians in the St. Louis area who collectively had a record number of more than 124,000 “encounters” with patients in 17 local hospitals in 2003.
“IPC’s strong presence in the market and outstanding track record in providing quality care makes them an excellent complement to our patient-care team,” said Rick Conklin, president of Parkland Health Center. “Both our patients and our medical staff will benefit from having IPC hospitalists on-site to oversee care and assure the smooth coordination of many hospital-based services.”
The first physician hired by IPC to work exclusively at Parkland Health Center is Shivaramaiah Shashikumar, M.D. In private practice in the Farmington area since August 2003, Dr. Shashikumar received his Doctorate of Medicine in 1995 from the University of Mysore, Mysore Medical College in India. He completed his internal medicine residency at Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Pennsylvania and is board certified in internal medicine.
Hospitalists are acute-care specialists who focus on a patient’s hospital care from time of admission to discharge. These doctors work in close consultation with the primary care physician to manage the entire inpatient episode of care. As the nation’s fastest-growing medical specialty, hospitalists have become the true drivers of inpatient medicine by coordinating all of the tests, treatments and services that take place within the hospital. Increasing evidence supports the contention that hospitalists increase quality of care and reduce healthcare costs while providing patients added comfort and security.
IPC is the nation’s premier hospitalist company employing approximately 300 physicians at practice locations in California’s Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, San Antonio, St. Louis and Tucson. Collectively, these practices manage more than $1 billion in healthcare expenditures annually. The company’s consulting services division helps hospitals and other healthcare organizations launch new hospitalist programs or enhance existing ones. Information on IPC may be obtained at http://www.hospitalist.com/.
IPC
CONTACT: Ross Goldberg, +1-818-597-8453, for IPC
Web site: http://www.hospitalist.com/
