CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
HYANNIS – A partnership between Cape Cod Hospital and Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center began earlier this month.
The agreement provides around-the-clock inpatient pediatric care for children on Cape Cod.
“The doctors at Floating Hospital for Children will be staffing the inpatient service at Cape Cod Hospital taking care of children when they come into the emergency department,” said Elisabeth Schainker, Floating Hospital for Children’s Chief of Pediatric Hospitalist Medicine.
Schainker said there will be a pediatrician, or hospitalist, from Floating Hospital at Cape Cod Hospital 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Hospitalists are physicians who are specially trained in caring for patients while they are in the hospital.
The hospitalists will care for children that come into the hospital while communicating with the patient’s regular pediatrician. The hospitalists will also consult with the emergency room medical staff, assist with deliveries and care for newborns in the nursery.
Donald Guadagnoli, the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Cape Cod Healthcare, which owns Cape Cod Hospital, said there had been a preexisting relationship with Floating Hospital for Children.
“Most of our babies, if they needed to be transferred, were transferred to Tufts,” he said. “We’ve had a good working relationship with the pediatricians at Tufts and the neonatologists who backed us up.”
Guadagnoli said the new partnership has basically formalized the existing relationship between the hospitals.
“The pediatricians that will be our inpatient hospitalist pediatricians are Tufts employees,” Guadagnoli said.
The pediatricians will “have the affiliation with Tufts, the teaching positions with Tufts and will be rotating through Tufts so that there is an ongoing ability to keep their skills well honed,” Guadagnoli said.
The new partnership will allow Cape Cod Hospital to keep as many babies and children here on the Cape.
“When a child is hospitalized or when a baby has a problem families come together,” Guadagnoli said. “And the ability to support each other and to be cared for locally is something that’s of great importance to families and providers of healthcare.”
Guadagnoli said the partnership is a benefit for the Cape Cod Community and the pediatricians.
Schainker said her division includes 40 faculty members that staff 5 community hospitals in eastern Massachusetts.
The program at Cape Cod Hospital started on October 1.
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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Seems to be a CCH trend. We have surgeons and doctors who specialize in emergency medicine but our trauma victims are routinely airlifted to Boston, Prov or Worcester – completely bypassing the hospital. The hospitalists for adults are the substitutes for your own doctor. Now they are shifting care for kids and babies to off Cape providers.
Are our local doctors inept or something?
Why were so many millions of dollars spent to enlarge the ER which cant seem to handle actual emergencies?
Why was so much money wasted on electronic records when they keep asking you the same things over and over and over again? Cant read maybe?
They do still make a delicious macaroni and cheese tho.