TUCSON, Ariz., Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- IPC-The Hospitalist Company and Tucson Heart Hospital have jointly announced that IPC has been engaged to provide internal medicine coverage 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
IPC physicians will be available to admit and care for inpatients who either do not have a treating physician to serve as the attending physician or who are referred by their existing community-based physician who believe care is more appropriate through a hospitalist provider. IPC physicians will also be available to admit and manage patients for Tucson Heart Hospital consulting cardiologists.
“This partnership with IPC will allow us to more effectively manage the flow of patients into and through the hospital,” said Gary Toche, chief executive officer of Tucson Heart Hospital. “Having IPC physicians on site to manage the non-emergency cardiac cases provides greater continuity of care for the non-acute patient and better focus from our cardiologists on the acute,” says Toche.
IPC physicians will also attend to non-cardiac cases which come to the hospital and if cardiac problems are detected, will call cardiologists as needed. “Most patients with heart disease have multiple health issues that are appropriate for hospitalists to handle,” says David Bowman, M.D., executive director of IPC Tucson. “Under this agreement our physicians will manage these cases and thus free up the cardiologists to focus on the cardiac patients who most need their level of expertise.”
IPC’s hospitalists have been caring for patients in the greater Tucson area for the past six years. Currently the company employs 31 physicians locally who collectively make 120,000 patient visits annually at eight local hospitals.
Hospitalists are acute-care specialists who focus on a patient’s hospital care from time of admission to discharge. 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 has shown that hospitalists increase quality of care and reduce healthcare costs while providing patients and their families added comfort and security.
IPC is the nation’s premier hospitalist company employing approximately 300 physicians at numerous practice locations around the country. Collectively, these practices see more than a million patients and 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-The Hospitalist Company
CONTACT: Ross Goldberg, +1-818-597-8453, for IPC-The HospitalistCompany
Web site: http://www.hospitalist.com/