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Skilled Doctors Playing an Important Role

At Saint Vincent Hospital, we’re dedicated to providing comprehensive, compassionate care to those in our community. As part of our ongoing commitment to excellence, our Hospitalist Program plays a critical part in providing you with support in getting the care you need. Hospitalists are doctors whose primary focus is providing general medical care for anyone admitted to our hospital.

What Do Saint Vincent Hospitalists Do?

Hospitalists are responsible for many important tasks, including:

 

  • Working in partnership with your primary care doctor to coordinate inpatient care
  • Working closely with nurses, ancillary staff and other specialists involved in your care
  • Being familiar with the hospital’s systems for ordering tests, analyzing results and arranging for treatment
  • Being trained to quickly recognize and respond to changes in the patient’s condition
  • Being available at the hospital 24 hours a day, so they can see patients as frequently as their medical conditions require
  • Promptly providing your doctor with a written report of your hospital visit to facilitate any follow-up care you may need

 

If you do not have a primary care doctor, the Hospitalist team will provide you with a list and arrange your follow-up care.

How Hospitalists Help Primary Care Doctors

Hospitalists practice full-time in the hospital, so they are readily available to help your doctor. When you enter the hospital, a Saint Vincent Hospitalist will immediately begin acting as attending doctor for the length of the hospital stay.

Hospitalists will:

 

  • Provide prompt admission and treatment
  • Oversee your entire hospital stay to provide quality care
  • Communicate ongoing patient status to your primary care doctor on a timely basis

 

Daily activities include:

 

  • Coordinating hospital admissions
  • Arranging diagnostic testing and specialty consultations
  • Explaining findings and discussing recommendations with patients
  • Orchestrating all patient care
  • Providing medical care for patients who need surgical treatment
  • Managing urgent situations that may arise during the hospitalization
  • Reviewing hospital treatment with insurance companies and payers

 

Career Opportunities

If you’re interested in a career as a Hospitalist at Saint Vincent Hospital, call (508) 363-6849 to learn more.

More Information

7 Types of Rehabilitation Therapy


Anyone may need rehabilitation at one point in their lives. The word ”rehabilitation” is often associated with vocational services or substance abuse recovery, but rehabilitation is designed to improve, restore and maintain functional ability and quality of life.

Rehabilitation can help both children and adults through intervention techniques that aim to optimize functioning and reduce disability. These intervention techniques depend on the goals and preferences of a patient; they may be designed to address pain, improve motor functions or address everyday hurdles an individual may face.

Contrary to popular belief, rehabilitation is not just for people with long-term or physical impairments. It is a core health service for anyone who needs it. Rehabilitation may help individuals recover from illness, injury, surgery, stroke, cardiac events or other medical issues and regain independence lost to these events.

There are different types of rehabilitation therapies, each designed with a specific goal or preference in mind.

Here are seven rehabilitation therapies commonly used in treatment plans:

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1. Cognitive Rehabilitation

Also called cognitive-behavior rehabilitation, this type of rehabilitation involves relearning or improving cognitive skills (e.g., memory, planning, decision-making, reasoning) that may have been lost due to trauma, illness or brain injury.		 pharmacorerehabilitation-300x200
2. Pharmacorehabilitation

Aims to improve mental and physical function through the use of drugs.		 Physical_therapy-300x200
3. Physical Therapy

Involves restoring or improving the body’s movements, sensations, strength and balance through targeted exercise and activities.
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4. Recreational Therapy 

Involves improving an individual’s social and emotional well-being. This may include music or art therapy that can help individuals express emotion, enhance cognitive development or develop social connectedness.		 speech_therapy-300x200
5. Speech and Language Therapy 

Involves improving impaired swallowing and mouth and tongue movement and improving voice, language and talking difficulties.		 occupational_therapy -300x200
6. Occupational Therapy 

Restores an individual’s function to perform daily activities at home, work and in the community. This may mean building motor skills, improving balance or helping the patient use adaptive equipment.
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7. Vocational Rehabilitation 

Prepares individuals to return to work after an injury, illness or medical event.

Various specialists may be involved with rehabilitation therapy, including but not limited to physiatrists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, cognitive rehabilitation therapists, gait and clinical movement specialists, speech therapists, audiologists, orthopedists, neurologists, psychiatrists, biomedical engineers and rehabilitation engineers.

Rehabilitation may occur in a provider’s office, a hospital, an inpatient rehabilitation center or a patient’s home. Rehabilitation performed at home may require family members or friends to come and help with the process.

Treatment at an inpatient facility may be the safest and most efficient choice if a patient needs more than one type of therapy in their treatment plan or requires close medical supervision. For patients who need fewer or less intensive care, outpatient or home-based services may suffice.

While there are many different types of rehabilitation, they all have the same goal: to help individuals improve their quality of life.


Sources: 
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
World Health Organization

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