Why Steward

I joined Steward Medical Group immediately after completing residency, continuing to work with the same hospital and same community that I was raised in and where I trained. Steward being a physician-run organization was very appealing to me. Having the people in charge understand what it really means to treat a patient is important. It results in an understanding of the importance of patient care and also the importance of structure and communication for the practicing physician.

The care model in place by Steward is beneficial for the patient as well as the provider. The organization encourages me to voice my opinion and to participate in critical patient care decision-making. There are committees and contacts in place to encourage a high level of transparency and communication. I am able to have a varied daily schedule which involves seeing my own patients in an outpatient setting, precepting with the residency clinic, giving lectures for didactics, and rounding on the inpatient side with the residents. I also attend meetings both for the residency program and for the hospital. Steward allows you to tailor your practice and your career in the way that you choose.

As far as the patient, Steward provides services within their model and within the community which encourages the use of local providers and services. This is better for the area and also better for the patient, providing patients with great care without having to travel to bigger cities or hospitals.

I came to Steward because the position offered a good opportunity and an opportunity to do good. The "good opportunity" was the chance to work within a physician-led organization providing high quality, efficient and low-cost care to patients close to where they live. The potential of working with an organization that was receptive to input from caregivers, and that was nimble enough to quickly respond to ideas about ways to improve patient care, was unique in my experience with other academic medical centers. Steward provides the environment where new procedures in patient care algorithms can be developed, deployed and their outcome assessed quickly.

The employees within the healthcare system have uniformly been enthusiastic to have new challenges and about new challenges and frontiers in the types of patients and types of procedures that are being performed here. These individuals are also eager to prove that they can achieve the same or better outcomes than employees at other medical centers. This creates a very invigorating and positive work environment in which there is the potential to accomplish a lot. The "opportunity to do good" was the chance to work within the Steward network, which serves a larger and more geographically diffuse population then any single hospital or medical center.

Working within the Steward network, one has the opportunity to be able to reach out and help care for patients at much more distant sites, patients who may not have the opportunity to travel to a more centralized academic institution. At times, this opportunity translates to outpatient clinics or consultations at the patient's home hospital. At other times, it can relate to developing treatment algorithms that can be applied system-wide to specific problems. The opportunity to do good also means the ability to bring procedures and surgical interventions to these individuals, that they would not otherwise have been able to access at their local level.

Having spent many years at a large Boston teaching hospital, the opportunity to participate in a different approach to healthcare was the primary reason I embraced the opportunity to join Steward Healthcare and the Steward Medical Group (SMG).

At Steward, the goal is to deliver the same quality healthcare one expects in a major Boston teaching hospital to our diverse communities through the network of Steward hospitals, the Steward Healthcare Network, and the Steward Medical Group. These networks promote service line integration through active physician participation in education, protocol standardization, supply chain management, and quality assurance programs. Rather than duplicating services, consultative programs in areas such as electrophysiology can be provided extramurally by physicians in the Steward Medical Group to a variety of practice venues such as physician offices and community hospitals.

An integrated PAC-s network enterprise systems facilitates real-time exchange of primary data including ECGs, echocardiograms, nuclear images, and angiograms.

Steward Healthcare recognized early on the need to invest considerable resources in programs such as the e-ICU and Home Care which improve patient outcomes without a financial return. This philosophy of healthcare delivery accounts for Steward’s highly successful participation in its Accountable Care Organization. As a physician-run organization, Steward Medical Group values the input of its physicians.

This commitment to physician collaboration has created the environment that has attracted many world-class physicians to Steward. Whether it is doing cutting-edge clinical research, teaching tomorrow’s doctors, or caring for underserved patients, Steward offers its physicians the opportunity to be on the forefront of the future of healthcare today.

I am a Family Medicine physician practicing in Groton, MA, affiliated with Steward Nashoba Valley Medical Center. I joined Steward Medical Group in August of 2012 after spending four years in the US Air Force. I grew up in Massachusetts and did most of my training in New England. It was important to me to practice in an area with world class health care and to raise my children in a safe and family-friendly area.

While in the Air Force, both the patients and the physicians were continually moving due to transfers and deployments. Because of this, it was an incredible challenge to communicate with the civilian specialists to whom I referred my patients. I felt the care of my patients was fractionated as I often had an incomplete picture of their health. Much of my time was spent tracking down documents and trying to establish a relationship with the colleagues caring for my patients.

When I was preparing to separate from the military, I specifically searched out a hospital system that had a well-established network of physicians, as well as one that encouraged our patients to stay within this network. There is an abundance of incredible health care options available in Massachusetts. However, trying to coordinate care when patients are being seen in different systems leads to duplication of efforts, the potential for missed follow up opportunities and patient dissatisfaction. Steward has an extensive network of specialists and subspecialists, many of whom travel regularly from St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center to our hospital. We really offer “world class health care where you live.”

Another tenant that our organization embodies is quality health care to all. Steward has been providing “the New Healthcare” for years and we are strongly prepared for Medicare’s Payment Reform. We have been focused on offering quality health care to all patients both through education of our physicians and staff as well as resources integrated in our EMR. An important aspect of my positive work-life balance is our EMR, Athenahealth. Our Steward IT department has worked extensively with me to streamline issues the program had in its interface with the hospital-based Meditech, as well as suggestions to improve the program itself. Being able to log in quickly and from any location as well as setting up templates that are relevant to my practice helps me to keep up on my workload.

I have been very pleased with the accessibility of the leadership in Steward as well as how responsive they have been to the suggestions or needs I have raised. I feel that I have a lot of input into how my practice is managed and I feel that my voice has been heard.

After working at a large downtown academic medical center for more than 20 years, people often ask me "Why did you decide join Steward Health Care and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center?" The truth is, there are multiple answers to that question.

The reason I went into medicine was for one simple reason - to take the best care of patients that I possibly could. While this might seems like an obvious statement, anyone working in the field of medicine today knows that it is not always so easy to do. The opportunity with Steward meant I could dedicate my time to focusing on innovation, team building, and the actual care of our patients.

When asked if I would join Steward and build the orthopedic department at St. Elizabeth’s, I said I would do so under one condition - that all decisions made moving forward would have the patients’ best interests in mind. In other words, I wanted every clinical and administrative decision to be made based on one simple question - "If I was a patient, how would I want to be treated in this situation?" In the past, I have been told that this type of "simplistic" approach was not practical. At Steward, I was given a much different answer: “We couldn't agree with you more - please do it."

And that is exactly the atmosphere that I have been able to create since coming to St. Elizabeth's. I have been given the support to recruit the very best clinicians from around the city, and nationally. I have been able to put together clinical care teams of physicians, physician assistants, medical assistants, and administrative assistants, run by the very physicians that have the ultimate responsibility for their own patients' well-being. What's more, this approach is 100% supported and facilitated by the system and hospital leadership teams. They stand behind every initiative that I try to implement, providing real guidance and administrative support. Their motto is "How can we do better for our patients?”

At the end of the day, what truly sets Steward Health Care and St. Elizabeth's apart from other places I have worked is its people. There is a real shared community among the physicians. I can call any one of them at any time for consultation, support, or advice. I can't walk down the hallways without a smile and greeting from almost everyone I pass. We are all there for one reason, and for one reason only - to give our patients the very best care possible. I go home at the end of day with a smile on my face, knowing I was able to make a difference for my patients, and my team.