Cogent Healthcare announces new hospital medicine affiliation with Allegiance Health

Cogent Healthcare today announced a new hospital medicine affiliation with Allegiance Health, a 411-bed health system located in Jackson, Mich.

“For the past several years, Allegiance Health has developed a national reputation for delivering the highest standards of care”

"For the past several years, Allegiance Health has developed a national reputation for delivering the highest standards of care," said Dr. Len Scarpinato, North-Central Regional Medical Director for Cogent Healthcare.

"We are honored to have been selected by Allegiance, and it is our goal - through our proven System of Care model - to further strengthen the hospital's commitment to excellence in patient care."

Comprised of more than 40 healthcare facilities, Allegiance Health is a community-owned health system, serving a six-county area in south central Michigan since 1918. In 2010, Allegiance Health was named to the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals list for the fourth time, and is an inaugural winner of the Everest Award, which honored hospitals that both attained high quality of care and improved at the greatest rate over a five-year period.

Allegiance Health launched its hospitalist program in 2006, with just four practitioners. The program has grown into a 24/7 service today, with 14 physicians and 2 nurse practitioners.

"After experiencing explosive growth within our internally-managed hospitalist program, we recognized a need for greater infrastructure and resources for our hospitalists," said Jacalyn Liebowitz, RN, Allegiance's Vice President of Patient Care Continuum.

"We selected Cogent among several possibilities primarily because of its physician leadership, focus on quality improvement, and educational resources for our physicians, such as Cogent Academy."

With hospital affiliations throughout the U.S., Cogent has proven experience developing a broad array of highly successful hospital medicine programs. Common among all programs is Cogent's System of Care that uniquely combines strong physician leadership with a constant measurement of performance indicators designed to demonstrate value to the hospital and benefit to patient care.

Specific goals for the Cogent-Allegiance Health program include: improving communication with primary care physicians, continuity of care, physician and patient satisfaction and quality outcomes.

"Allegiance takes pride in having served the healthcare needs of south central Michigan for nearly a century," said Georgia Fojtasek, president and CEO of Allegiance Health System.

"By joining forces with a proven hospitalist program provider such as Cogent, we reaffirm our commitment to our patients, our medical staff and the surrounding Jackson community."