March 1, 2023
Hospital medicine is a fast-growing specialty and Capstone Hospitalist Group is demonstrating that having doctors practice in hospitals is reducing the length of hospital stays and increasing patient satisfaction, said Dr. Richard Friend, dean of the College of Community Health Sciences.
During a Mini Medical School presentation in February, Friend and Dr. Lisa Gillespie, medical director of Capstone Hospitalist Group, provided information about the work of the hospitalist group.
“The idea of the hospitalist group is for a group of physicians to be trained in a delivery of specialized medical care in the hospital setting,” said Gillespie. “As we place patients on the floors of the hospital, we assign our hospitalists to those floors to learn about the patients, their need for specialized care, and the team of nurses that they will be working with.”
The hospitalists care for patients at two hospitals in the DCH Health System—DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa and Northport Medical Center in Northport.
Friend said preliminary data shows that patient satisfaction is up to 80% for patients of Capstone Hospitalist Group and that Gillespie is working to recruit more full-time hospitalists.
Mini Medical School is a series of lectures provided to The University of Alabama OLLI program by faculty physicians of CCHS.
