PrimeDoc launches private-practice hospitalist program in Georgia

PrimeDoc Management Services, Inc., an Asheville-based, physician owned company that specializes in the establishment, staffing, and management of turnkey hospitalist programs, has launched a private-practice hospitalist program at Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick. The program started in early August and is PrimeDoc’s third in the state of Georgia. Other PrimeDoc hospitalist programs in the state are located in Athens, with additional practices elsewhere in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.

“Having this service means that patients have access to the care of on-site internal medicine doctors who focus exclusively on them while they are in the hospital, from the time they are admitted until the time they are discharged,” said Gary R. Colberg, FACHE, president & CEO of the Health System. “Since they do not maintain a private practice, these physicians, called ‘hospitalists,’ are on-site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to care for whatever medical needs patients have during their stay. This means patients no longer have to wait for their primary care physician to check on them either before going to his or her office in the morning or in the evening after the doctor’s office closes.”

PrimeDoc is recruiting and will manage six internal medicine physicians for the Brunswick hospitalist team. The practice’s clinical director is Misty Leigh Williams, MD, who is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics and is a graduate of the University of Arkansas Medical School (UAMS). She is a former clinical instructor in the Department of Pediatrics for UAMS and for the past three years practiced as a PrimeDoc hospitalist in Frederick, Md.

“We are delighted to add Southeast Georgia Health System to the growing list of hospitals we serve,” said Robert J. Reynolds, MD, the company’s president and CEO, who is an internal medicine specialist with 18 years of clinical practice experience. “We are selective about the hospitals we partner with and to be chosen from among larger, national companies for this contract means the leaders of the Health System value a personal level of service that PrimeDoc offers its clients.”

Dr. Reynolds founded PrimeDoc in 1997 at the start of the hospitalist movement. Today hospital medicine is the fastest-growing medical specialty in North America as patients, hospitals and physicians realize the benefits of having doctors on-site all day, every day. Colberg said the Health System decided to implement a hospitalist program to enhance the quality of care patients experience in the hospital. “Our purpose is to provide specialists in inpatient care for our patients. We chose PrimeDoc because they are pioneers in the hospitalist movement. We look forward to partnering with them and believe it is a step forward for those in our community who require hospitalization at our Brunswick Campus.”

Studies confirm the value of hospital medicine specialists in enhancing the care of hospitalized patients. Research reported in the August 10/24 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine indicated that, in general, hospitals with hospitalists provide significantly better disease treatment and diagnosis than do facilities without hospitalists. A 2007 study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that patients cared for by hospitalists rather than a general internist or family physician were discharged from the hospital as much as a half-day sooner, on average.