Catholic Medical names hospitalist med director

William Goodman will lead hospital-wide improvements to CMC inpatient service

Consistent with a growing national trend, physicians called “hospitalists,” who specialize in the care of hospitalized patients, have been managing the majority of inpatients at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. To enhance those services, CMC has named Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Dr. William Goodman to the post of hospital medicine director.

Goodman will lead the Hospital Medicine Section at CMC, which manages the majority of inpatients.

Ultimately, hospitalist-managed inpatient care delivers improved health outcomes, more satisfied patients and a safer transition of care to the outpatient setting, said Goodman.

“My focus is to improve the delivery of care in our hospital,” he said. “Because of the improvements in outpatient care, when someone requires admission to CMC, they are usually facing a serious illness or a complicated acute health challenge, which requires a team of physicians and staff to treat. Our department’s job is to coordinate that care to ensure the patient gets the best possible results and this requires the establishment of shared goals and clear communication between the patient, other practitioners and involved family members.”

For patients, having a hospitalist manage their care means the logistics of their care are streamlined. For example, a hospitalist is responsible for sending a summary of what took place in the hospital, important test results collected during the admission and an updated medication list to the discharged patient’s setting of outpatient care.

“Bill has already implemented a number of reforms in our intensive care unit, which have helped us improve our care by decreasing hospital acquired conditions, shortening length of hospitalization and reducing costs of care” said Dr. Joseph Pepe, CEO of CMC. “We are confident he will lead us to our goal of blending the best techniques with a more personal touch. Our goal is to provide excellence with heart.”

For example, to ensure clear communication, Goodman is implementing daily “bedside multidisciplinary rounds” with members of the team caring for a patient, including the physician, nutritionist, social worker, bedside nurse, nurse practitioner and pharmacist. The idea is that by having everyone together at once each morning, communication is maximized, goals are shared and misunderstandings are avoided.

In addition, since early May, each doctor manages patients in a specific area of the hospital in order to keep them more closely connected to all of their patients. It was common in the past that a hospitalist would have to visit patients in opposite corners of a hospital, which would separate them a few times per day from nursing staff, patients and their families. Since doctors have been managing patients in just one area of the hospital they spend more time with the patient and other members of the patient’s care team.

“CMC has several specialty services, which means a patient can have several different doctors working on them at any one time,” says Dr. Goodman. “The changes our department will implement blend new technology with old-fashioned communication to improve the quality of care for everyone who comes to our hospital.”

Goodman, a Dartmouth-Hitchcock pulmonologist and critical care specialist, will also continue his outpatient practice at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock practices in Manchester and Derry.