Dr. Torcson
Dr. Torcson
Dr. McGraw
Dr. Cooper
Dr. Beerman
Dr. Strader
Dr. Lembcke
Dr. Sharma
Patrick Torcson, MD, MMM, FACP, SFHM, has been named vice president and chief integration officer at St. Tammany Parish Hospital (STPH) in Covington, La.
Dr. Torcson’s new duties will revolve around quality improvement through health information technology. Dr. Torcson will continue to work as director of STPH’s hospital medicine program, which he helped establish in 2005.
Kathleen McGraw, MD, FHM, has been named 2013 Community Clinician of the Year by the Franklin District Medical Society. Dr. McGraw is chief medical officer at Brattleboro (Vt.) Memorial Hospital. She previously served as hospitalist medical director at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass.
Hospitalist R. Wayne Cooper, MD, received the 2013 Physician of the Year Award from Lake Regional Health System in Osage Beach, Mo. Dr. Cooper was chosen by a panel of hospital staff doctors and administrators for his kindness, dedication, and positive attitude. Dr. Cooper has been a hospitalist at Lake Regional since 2010.
Steve Beerman, MD, is the new hospitalist medical director at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati. Dr. Beerman has been a hospitalist at the 650-bed acute-care hospital since 2003.
Bryan Strader, MD, is the new hospitalist medical director at 420-bed Bethesda North Hospital (BNH) in Cincinnati. Dr. Strader joined the BNH hospitalist team in 2006.
Bradley Lembcke, MD, recently received EmCare’s Summit Award for 2013 Hospitalist of the Year. Dr. Lembcke is a hospitalist at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in Dallas, the country’s largest and oldest hospitalist group. BUMC is a 1,065-bed, nonprofit teaching hospital.
Chintu Sharma, MD, has been awarded the 2013 Physician of the Year award at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster, Md. Dr. Sharma has been a practicing hospitalist at Carroll since 2010.
Business Moves
Brentwood, Tenn.-based Cogent HMG began providing hospitalist services to inpatients at 275-bed Western Maryland Regional Medical Center in Cumberland, Md., on April 1 as part of a new contract. Cogent supplies contracted hospitalist services to more than 100 U.S. hospitals.
Sound Physicians, based in Tacoma, Wash., has announced plans to begin managing hospitalist services at Sentara Obici Hospital in Suffolk, Va. The 168-bed facility is one of 10 Sentara Medical Group acute-care hospitals throughout Virginia. Sound Physicians manages more than 650 hospitalists at more than 70 facilities across the U.S.
IPC: The Hospitalist Company, based in North Hollywood, Calif., recently announced its acquisition of two Wichita, Kan.-area hospitalist practices. Kansas Inpatient Services LLC and Kansas Long Term Care Physicians LLC both provide hospitalists in and around the greater Wichita area. Together they encounter an estimated 90,000 inpatients per year. IPC serves hospitals and practices in 28 states.
Mauldin, S.C.-based OB Hospitalist Group (OBHG) is now providing OBGYN services to the new obstetrics emergency department at 350-bed Athens (Ga.) Regional Medical Center. OBHG provides OBGYN hospitalist services in 45 programs throughout the country.