Demand for Medical Specialists Growing Along with Lansing-area Hospitals

The demand for doctors who specifically care for patients in hospitals is growing in the Mid-Michigan region. The hospitalist specialty has grown as more primary care physicians seek to focus on seeing patients in their offices.

According to excerpts from the article:

Hospitalists, who also can be found on staff at Lansing-area hospitals, are doctors who care for patients when they're in hospitals. Lansing-area hospitals - Sparrow Hospital, Ingham Regional Medical Center and Hayes Green Beach Hospital - are among the health care systems nationwide with such programs.

The specialty has grown as financial pressures drive primary care physicians to focus more on seeing patients in their offices.

Louise Keen said "it's not an issue" that her 79-year-old husband isn't being treated by his doctor of almost 50 years.

The hospitalists are "taking good care of him," she said.

"It's very good for the patients because there's a physician here to address their needs at all times," said Mary Ording, a pediatric hospitalist at Ingham Regional Medical Center since 1998.

Ording works 24-hour shifts about eight times a month and sees 18 to 25 children each day.

Because patient stays tend to be short, hospitalists increase the likelihood patients are "seen by one doctor the whole time," said Emily Davis, spokeswoman for Ingham Regional, the Lansing hospital owned by Flint's McClaren Health Care Corp., which has five hospitalists.

The arrangement is appealing for doctors because it's often difficult for them to juggle seeing patients in their offices and admitting patients to a hospital. The admissions process can take two hours, said Dr. Kimberly Bell, medical director of Centennial's hospitalist program.

Read the entire article here.