Important Message for Our Patients Regarding Hospital Care

After a long period of careful contemplation, the physicians of North Sound Family Medicine have decided to utilize the services of the IMI (Inpatient Management Inc) hospitalists working at St Joseph Hospital as of February 5, 2010. As you might know, hospitalists are physicians who specialize in providing hospital care.  They are in the hospital 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing care to patients.  

While we will no longer be seeing our adult patients in the hospital, we will be working closely with the hospitalists to provide optimal coordination of care.  Our goal is to create seamless, expert and thoughtful care for our patients who need to be in the hospital. By inviting the hospitalists to care for our adult hospitalized patients, we will be able to increase access to appointments for patients in our office.

We will still provide hospital care for our patients who are under 18 years old, including newborns.  Our physicians who provide obstetric care, Dr. Short, Dr. Wakefield Pagels, Dr. Swanson, Dr. Floyd, and Dr. Raduege, will continue to see new and established OB patients, manage labor and delivery, and provide hospital care for mothers and babies. 

We encourage you to ask us questions if you have any concerns.  We also welcome your feedback as we make this transition.

Sincerely, Dan Austin, MD, Ying Wu, MD, Jason Short, MD, April Wakefield Pagels, MD, Sue Dabney, MD, Mary Swanson, MD, Kirk Gulden, MD, Anneliese Floyd, MD and John Raduege MD