Inpatient & Outpatient Consultations

Since 1988, our physicians have actively assisted referring physicians in managing acute and chronic infectious diseases, such as soft tissue infections, osteomyelitis, HIV, pneumonia, and other viral and bacterial infections.

 

Studies have shown that the management of such infectious diseases by ID sub-specialists results in better clinical outcomes than when these diseases are managed solely by non-specialists.  Furthermore, the earlier our physicians are asked to consult on a case, the quicker and better the outcomes are for the patient.

 

ID Consultants utilizes several fundamental principles that we believe promotes better care for our patients: 

  • We have always made extra effort and gone to great lengths to find and select the best physicians to join our practice.  Not only is board certification a prerequisite, but we assess medical school education, fellowhip training, as well as academic, research, and honorary achievements.  You may have heard that there is a shortage in the pool of physicians in many specialties, and in our experience, we have found in particular, the pool of talented ID physicians, is shrinking rapidly.  Nevertheless, we put forth our best effort to attract the best candidates who are a good fit for our practice and the hospitals we serve.
  • Communication with other care providers is key for optimal patient care, which is why our physicians and nurses strive to coordinate and maintain communication with other providers involved in your care.  We believe the current health care environment with constraints on physician time and volume productivity makes provider-to-provider communication ever more challenging than in the past, but our physicians have always advocated to hospital administrators that physician-to-physician requests for consultations is paramount when requesting or transferring the care of patients.
  • Continuity of care is also most favorable for patient care when the same physician sees the same patient throughout an episode of care.  However, logistical reasons will always prevent this from occurring 100% of the time for any group practice, but we aspire to hold true to this standard whenever possible. 
  • Access to patient medical records, including not only the imaging, laboratory, and pathology reports, but sometimes even the actual radiology images themselves, all help our physicians in making a proper diagnosis and in prescribing the best course of treatment.  For these reasons, we request what may seem to outsiders as an extraordinary amount of information on a patient before the appointment.  Please know that the request for these records is done in the best interest of the patient.  Having all the information upfront not only prevents the duplicate ordering of labs and other tests but can potentially save the patient a second visit to our facility.  Additionally, we utilize an Electronic Medical Records system in our office, which, in itself bears new challenges, but we do see immediate enhancements in patient care notably by way of the shortened time span to which our physicians’ medical records are transferred to other providers and the benefit of our physicians having the capability to remotely access patient files while off-site.
  • As a matter of cost efficiency and practicality, we have found that some ID physicians are opting for strictly a hospital-based practice with no outpatient clinic space.  Leasing clinical space involves additional overhead which oftentimes in the ID specialty, will not yield a return.  Here, we have always and continue to operate an outpatient center in which our physicians are able to follow up on patients they’ve consulted on in the hospital.  Being able to have a clinic setting in which our physicians can follow patients after their discharge and throughout the course of their treatment translates simply to mean better care for the patient.
  • Finally, many practices find that recruiting and retaining good ancillary staff is a challenge.  We are not an exception to this challenge, but we also believe that we employ a highly skilled and experienced team of nurses and pharmacy personnel to care for our patient population, and they complete the continuum of care providers that is so vital to the overall care of our patients.

Our physicians have worked hard to earn a wonderful reputation in the local medical community, and we thank our referring physicians for entrusting the care of their patients to us.

 

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For more information on scheduling an appointment, click here.


Please ask your Primary Care Physician if a referral to our office may be appropriate.