July 27, 2020
Physicians with University Hospitalist Group are caring for University Medical Center patients hospitalized at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa.
University Hospitalist Group was established by UMC in 2003 in partnership with DCH. Services provided to UMC patients by physicians of the group include in-patient care at DCH after emergency room visits or doctor referrals, continuity of care with patients’ primary-care physicians, and patient consultation.
University Hospitalist Group includes 21 physicians and three nurse practitioners who provided nearly 58,000 patient care visits last year for UMC and other patients hospitalized at DCH.
A hospitalist is a doctor who cares for patients in the hospital from the time they are admitted to the time they are discharged, providing much of the hospital care once handled by patients’ primary-care physicians. Hospitalist services are common in hospitals across the United States and hospital medicine is now one of the country’s largest medical specialties.
The growth of the specialty has been fueled by several trends, the main one being the demands on office-based physicians’ time have significantly increased and many have less time to travel to facilities where their patients are hospitalized.
Research also suggests greater satisfaction among hospitalized patients who are cared for by hospitalists, who can immediately answer questions of hospitalized patients, meet with the family and follow up on patient lab tests.
UMC is the largest multi-specialty medical practice in West Alabama, with locations in Tuscaloosa, Northport and Demopolis, and is operated by The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences.
DCH Regional Medical Center is a tertiary-care hospital with more than 580 beds, an advanced trauma unit and advanced services in cancer, cardiology, robotic and minimally invasive surgery, critical care pulmonology, gastroenterology, and nephrology.
