NEW SERVICE: 'HOSPITALISTS' HIRED

On Monday, Cape Girardeau's two hospitals begin a joint venture aimed at improving care for patients without a local doctor.

The new "hospitalist" program should also improve work schedules for local physicians, said Karen Hendrickson, assistant administrator and nurse executive at Southeast Missouri Hospital, and Cheryl Mothes, vice president of medical staff relations at St. Francis Medical Center.

Dr. Matt Shepard has been hired jointly by Southeast and St. Francis as a hospitalist and starts work Monday. He will be joined within a month by Dr. Teena Sharrock.

A hospitalist is a new type of medical specialist employed by hospitals and responsible for patients admitted to the hospitals without a local doctor. The hospitalist follows a patient through his hospital stay. When released, the patient is to see a doctor in private practice for additional follow-up care.

The program will have two components: one to treat adult patients and the second to treat children. The pediatric portion is to begin by the end of the year.

Hendrickson and Mothes have been working together eight months to establish the project. In March a group of physicians asked the hospital administration for help assigning patients who arrive at the emergency room and have no local doctor.

Patients who are treated at the emergency room and released won't come under the program. But approximately 175 patients each month are admitted at the two hospitals with no local doctor. Doctors take turns accepting these patients and following them through their hospital stays.

"This can be a burden to doctors who already have their own office schedules and rounds to make," Hendricks said.

The answer from the hospitals was to implement the hospitalist program.

One hospitalist typically has 15 to 20 patients. Initially, one or two doctors can't accept all the patients admitted without local doctors. Additional doctors will be hired.

"We don't know how many," Mothes said. "We are starting with two, and we'll see how many we need."

As more hospitalists are hired, the on-call system for private-practice doctors will be phased out, Mothes said.

The hospitals will file insurance forms and do billing for the hospitalists.

"This is not a program for patients without insurance," Hendrickson said. About two thirds of the patients admitted without a local doctor have health insurance.

However, the number of unassigned patients is expected to increase as Cape Girardeau markets itself as a regional health-care center.

Hendrickson and Mothes said the hospitalist program isn't linked with the planned merger of the two hospitals, but it is an example of the hospitals working cooperatively. In discussions of the merger, hospitalists have been mentioned. The hospitals promised to hire at least three.

"I think the cooperative atmosphere that exists helped tremendously," Mothes said. "We were able to communicate openly. That's why, I think, we were able to complete this so quickly."

The program has been approved by both hospital governing bodies, and an oversight committee of local physicians has been established. The program is administered jointly by the two hospitals. Costs, recruiting, hiring and management are shared.

Shepard has been practicing in Cape Girardeau for a year. Sharrock is in private practice in Poplar Bluff. She grew up in Scott City.

Shepard completed his residency in internal medicine at Indiana University Medical Center. He graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine.

Sharrock completed a dual residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Medicine.