Robert Harrington, MD, recently was tabbed as chief medical officer of SurveyVitals, a health care analytics company specializing in digital patient-experience surveys. Dr. Harrington has 20 years experience, including CMO roles with Reliant Post–Acute Care Solutions and Locum Leaders, a hospitalist staffing firm.
Dr. Robert Harrington
With SurveyVitals, Dr. Harrington will focus on client needs as the company seeks new ways to help patients provide feedback to providers. He also will support and direct the development of new features for SurveyVitals.
Dr. Harrington is a senior fellow in Hospital Medicine and is past president and member of the board of directors with the Society of Hospital Medicine.
David Northington, DO, has been named the new chief medical officer at Stone County Hospital in Wiggins, Miss. The former hospitalist comes to Stone County after working as chief of staff and chief medical information officer at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss., where he was also medical director of the hospitalist program.
In addition to his new role, Dr. Northington will serve as medical director of the Woodland Village Nursing Center in Diamondhead, Miss., and the Stone County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Wiggins.
Schuyler K. Geller, MD, has been recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the medical field. Dr. Geller works as a full-time hospitalist and a principal consultant for The CopperRidge Group, which provides guidance to patients in health, wellness, and fitness services and products.
In addition to his work at the CopperRidge Group, Dr. Geller is a member of Civil Vision International’s board of directors. He has extensive civilian and military-based experience in the United States, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
A physician leader in the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Geller earned White House Medical Unit commendations for planning and leading the surgical and intensive care unit teams to support President Clinton’s trips to Vietnam and Africa in 2000.
Nikhil Sharma, MD, recently was selected by the International Association of HealthCare Professionals to be part of the Leading Physicians of the World. Dr. Sharma is a hospitalist serving at the Ochsner Health System in New Orleans.
Dr. Sharma, a member of the Southern Hospital Association and the Louisiana Medical Association, began his medical career in 2009 with a residency and fellowship at Ochsner, where he has remained ever since. He specializes in internal medicine and transplants.
I. Carol Nwelue, MD, a longtime hospitalist and the medical director of the Sparrow Medical Group Adult Hospitalist Service, recently received the Sparrow Physician Leadership Award. The award goes to an emerging leader who provides outstanding work in areas such as safety, clinical or service excellence, research, teaching, publishing, teamwork, and innovation.
Dr. Nwelue completed the Sparrow Physician Leadership Academy program, earning recognition for innovation in leadership, as well as practice management.
Laura Jin, MD, recently was promoted to medical director for utilization management at the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health. In her new role, Dr. Jin will identify and facilitate the resolution of utilization issues; in so doing, she will serve as a consultant leader to the health care system, its physicians, its advance practice providers, and the care management team.
Dr. Jin will remain as a hospitalist at Digestive Health Associates while fulfilling the duties in her new position at Shore Regional. She will guide the center on issues such as compliance, level of care, length of stay, resource management, reimbursement, emergency department throughput, and more.
Business Moves
The Mount Sinai Health System and The New Jewish Home, both based in New York City, have extended their relationship to improve care of hospitalized patients who require specialized post-acute or long-term care at a skilled nursing facility. Through the Mount Sinai-New Jewish Home Hospitalist Program, Mount Sinai hospitalists will be charged with providing a seamless transition to The New Jewish Home for patients who need nursing care.
This model will buoy communication and ensure the sharing of vital information between the two venues, reducing the risk of rehospitalization.
Gryphon Investors, based in San Francisco, recently announced it will acquire OB Hospitalist Group, one of the nation’s leading providers of obstetric hospital medicine. The deal with OBHG’s current partner, Ares Management, was finalized in late July.
OBHG, based out of Mauldin, S.C., has a national network of more than 550 OB hospitalists, covering more than 120 hospitals in 28 states. OBHG’s hospitalist program features an obstetric emergency department, providing expectant mothers at partner hospitals with 24/7/365 access to medical care.
Envision Healthcare, based in Nashville, Tenn., and Greenwood Village, Colo., a provider of physician-led services and ambulatory surgery services, has acquired Milwaukee-based Infinity Healthcare. Infinity’s group-physician practice includes more than 340 physicians and providers delivering emergency and hospital medicine, anesthesia, and radiology services.