UVM Medical Center Intensivist team with Central Vermont Medical Center Hospitalists left to right Rachel Gaidys, MD, Sarah Swift, MD, Ryan Clouser, MD, Josh Farkas, MD, Gilman Allen, MD, Justin Stinnett, MD, and Scott Nelson, MD.
Berlin, VT – Two members of the University of Vermont Health Network, Central Vermont Medical Center and the University of Vermont Medical Center recently kicked off an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Collaborative at UVM Health Network – CVMC.
Phil Brown, DO, UVM Health Network –CVMC chief medical officer and Gilman Allen, MD, medical director, adult critical care at the University of Vermont Medical Center made the announcement in early February.
“ICU care is a team effort including hospitalist physicians, nurses, nutritionists, respiratory therapists and physical therapists,” noted Dr. Allen. “Our goal is to provide intensivist support for hospitalists taking care of ICU patients here at CVMC,” said Dr. Allen. “This will be a collaborative process that will seek to provide more uniform care that conforms with national standards but also is properly matched to local resource capacities.”
Intensivist support will include onsite support one day per week, including bedside patient care, educational lectures, collaborative development of protocols for uniform delivery of best practices, phone consultations, and creation of a shared quality dashboard. Dr. Allen and two other UVM Medical Center Intensivists, Drs. Ryan Clouser and Josh Farkas, comprise the Intensivist team.
Intensivists are physicians who are board-certified in the subspecialty of Critical Care Medicine. A hospitalist as defined by the Society of Hospitalist Medicine is “A physician who specializes in the practice of hospital medicine. Following medical school, hospitalists typically undergo residency training in general internal medicine, general pediatrics, or family practice, but may also receive training in other medical disciplines. Some hospitalists undergo additional post-residency training specifically focused on hospital medicine, or acquire other indicators of expertise in the field.”
“The CVMC ICU nursing team is looking forward to the educational opportunities this collaboration will make possible,” said Kelly Welch, RN. “This will be done by working alongside the ICU Intensivist at CVMC and the ability to use the resources and share knowledge with the nursing leaders and staff at UVMMC Medical ICU.”
“This is a huge step for care of CVMC’s patients,” explained Dr. Brown. “Approximately seven years ago we instituted the Hospitalist program at CVMC. Prior to that if there was a problem with a hospital patient the nurse would call the patient’s primary care physician and he/she would come in or provide verbal orders,” he recalled. “The ICU collaboration will allow CVMC to keep some ICU patients closer to home and family instead of being transferred to Burlington.”
One of the guiding principals of The University of Vermont Health Network is to provide the right care, at the right time, in the right location….every time. This is a significant step in the right direction toward this objective.
The University of Vermont Health Network – Central Vermont Medical Center is part of a four-hospital system established to deliver high quality academic medicine to every community we serve. Our partners are: The University of Vermont Health Network – Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, The University of Vermont Medical Center and Elizabethtown Community Hospital.