Dr. Joseph Slaughter and Dr. Brent Murphy Assume New Duties at JPMC A new initiative has been launched at Jackson Purchase Medical Center that can raise the bar in the treatment of patients and enhance the practice efficiency of existing physicians. Jackson Purchase Medical Center has partnered with Drs. Joseph Slaughter and Brent Murphy, two well respected internists from Mayfield, to establish a “Hospitalist” program. A Hospitalist is a physician who devotes 100% of his/her time to caring for patients in the hospital. They do not have an office from which they treat outpatients. The hospital is their office. Hospitalist programs are among the fastest growing new services in hospitals across the country. The new service improves the practice efficiency for existing physicians and can help maintain the quality of care for the patients. As Hospitalist physicians, Drs. Slaughter and Murphy will work closely with patients’ family physicians. They will assume the care of a patient at the request of the family physician or in conjunction with a surgeon. Once the patient is released from the hospital, their family physician or surgeon will resume their outpatient care. Communication between these two caregivers is essential for the program to be successful. “I look forward to helping establish the new Hospitalist Program at JPMC with Dr. Murphy. Such a program can help busy physicians by freeing them to work uninterrupted in their offices and allowing us to emphasize helping their patients through the increasing complexities of serious illness and hospital care,” states Dr. Joseph Slaughter. According to Mary Jo Lewis, JPMC’s CEO, “The opportunity to implement this program with Drs. Slaughter and Murphy has made all the difference. We know that our local physicians would not turn over the care of their patients to anyone they did not know and trust.” In today’s healthcare environment, the average family physician delivers much more patient care in a clinic setting than they did 20 years ago. Working with a Hospitalist provides these physicians with the ability to focus more on their clinic needs while knowing that their patients are receiving the best care possible if they have to be hospitalized. Some physicians may choose to continue their traditional practice patterns. Lewis said, “This is completely their choice. We just want to offer this program to those physicians who prefer to devote more of their time and effort to an outpatient practice.”