Hospitalist Services
Salina Regional Health Center is staffed with physicians who practice under our hospitalist service. This service is a benefit to our patients as well as to other physicians. Your primary care physician will decide whether or not you will be seen by a hospitalist while you are a patient at Salina Regional Health Center.
What is a hospitalist?
Hospitalists are physicians who specialize exclusively in caring for patients in the hospital. If your primary care physician determines that you need to be hospitalized, he or she may choose to admit you to the hospital under the care of Salina Regional Health Center's hospitalist staff.
Hospitalists receive information about your medical history from your primary care physician and work with your doctor to provide a plan of care during the hospital stay. Hospitalists may in turn consult a wide array of other specialty physicians ranging from surgeons, cardiologists and neurologist to radiologists and many other specialists available locally. Hospitalist work to coordinate the entire range of patient care during your hospital stay.
If your primary care physician is local, they may still see you during your hospital stay. Regardless, your primary care physician will receive continual updates about your progress after you arrive at the hospital and before you are discharged home.
Benefit to patients
Hospitalists work on site at the hospital providing coverage to patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This level of availability allows them to attend to patient needs that may arise at any time. Often, since hospitalists do not work in a clinic setting and focus solely on inpatient care, patients find they are able to go home more quickly.
Hospitalists are also more readily available to meet with you and your family about your progress. As the physician who is coordinating all care given during your stay, they are able to interpret all aspects of the care plan and relay that information to you and your family.
Once you are able to leave the hospital, hospitalists work with your primary care provider to establish all follow-up care needed to complete a successful recovery.
Physician referrals
The goal of the hospitalist program is to facilitate easy patient transfers and keep primary care physicians apprised of your progress during the hospital stay.
Referring physicians can reach the hospitalist on duty by calling toll free 877-754-SRHC (7742).
Patient/Family updates
Salina Regional hospitalist staff make rounds on patients daily and more often as needed. During these visits, you are updated about your recovery progress and all plans being made.
If family members and loved ones are unable to be present during rounds and have additional questions, they can ask your nurse for the latest information about your care plan. Your nurse can also arrange meetings directly with one of the hospitalists.
To contact a patient's nurse call the hospital's main telephone number, (785) 452-7000, and ask for the nurses station where the patient is admitted in the hospital. The unit secretary will be able to get family members and loves ones in touch with a patient's nurse.