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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Wyoming Valley hospitals have cashed in on a growing trend to use hospitalists to cut the duration of a patient&#8217;s hospital stay and streamline healthcare.</p><p>A hospitalist is a medical doctor trained in the areas of general internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics or a specialty field such as an OBGYN.</p><p>Hospitalists permanently work in a hospital overseeing the care of patients. Primary care physicians no longer have to commute to and from a hospital to administer patient care.</p><p>&#8220;Hospitalists are the fastest rising specialty in healthcare, &#8221; Louis O&#8217;Boyle, D.O., director of the hospitalist program at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, said. &#8220;There are just over 48,000 hospitalists in 70 percent of the hospitals in the country.&#8221;</p><p>Family medicine physician, Dr. Susan A. Werner of Geisinger Nanticoke noted some of Geisinger&#8217;s hospitals are almost a half hour away from her practice. The time traveling was being misappropriated.</p><p>Using Geisinger&#8217;s hospitalist program gives her patients access to a doctor 24 hours a day while allowing her to meet the needs of her out-patients.</p><p>&#8220;We (hospitalists) keep the ball rolling so patients can get out of the hospital faster,&#8221; O&#8217;Boyle said. &#8220;I can follow up on patients that were tested in the morning.&#8221;</p><p>O&#8217;Boyle, owner of Advance Inpatient Medicine, a hospitalist management group based in Lakeville, provides 10 hospitalists to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, a Commonwealth Health facility. Other hospitals using his staffing service includes Scranton&#8217;s Regional Hospital with 13 hospitalists and Moses Taylor Hospital with six.</p><p>Geisinger Health System has used its own hospitalist program since 2005. Currently, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center employs 23 hospitalists.</p><p>Hospitalist programs provide faster medical test analysis and treatment plans that result in a shorter hospitalization, both Werner and O&#8217;Boyle said.</p><p>Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston reported a hospitalist program can cut the duration of a patient&#8217;s hospital stay by about a day.</p><p>&#8220;Patients do have a shorter length of stay which also lowers the costs associated with a hospital stay,&#8221; Werner said.</p><p>The family doctor is kept up-to-date during a patient&#8217;s hospitalization.</p><p>&#8220;Communication with the primary care physician is key to a hospitalist program,&#8221; O&#8217;Boyle said. &#8220;It creates a seamless experience for the patient.&#8221;</p><p>With the Geisinger electronic medical record keeping system, Werner said she can access and monitor her patients hospital care in &#8220;real time.&#8221;</p><p>She is notified when her patient is discharged from the hospital. A nurse from her office called a case worker, will call the patient to schedule a follow-up visit, Werner said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Dr. Louis O&#8217;Boyle, D.O., director of Wilkes-Barre General Hospital&#8217;s hospitalist program, reviews patient protocol with nursing assistant Lisa Miller. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_TTL081515Hospitalist_biz_2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Dr. Louis O&#8217;Boyle, D.O., director of Wilkes-Barre General Hospital&#8217;s hospitalist program, reviews patient protocol with nursing assistant Lisa Miller. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Eileen Godin</p><p>egodin@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Eileen Godin at 570-991-6387 or on Twitter @TLNews.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Northeastern Pennsylvania has growing medical field — hospitalist