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The Future of Specialty Hospitalist Medicine

Our proven strategies and unique call models have transformed specialty call from an expensive EMTALA requirement into a strategic asset. Our hospital-based status provides stronger physician/hospital alignment and better care collaboration, resulting in improved emergency medicine service, outcomes, and market share.

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Experienced Emergency Medicine Leadership With Proven Track Record

Surgical Colleagues is the evolution of our leadership team's accumulated experience and the new skill sets needed to succeed in a value-based reimbursement system. We are not your typical staffing firm for medical vacancies – we are your partner in developing a hospital-based specialty practice.

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Pioneers in Specialty Hospitalist Services

Our team was among the first to develop surgical hospitalists, with more than 65 programs implemented nationally. Our core services are Acute Care and Trauma Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Neurosurgery, Gastroenterology, and Urology.

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Why Surgical Colleagues?

Hospitals Contact Us to Address Coverage Issues but Stay With Us Because of Our VALUE

We are a hospital-based partner and practice. Our only focus is Specialty Hospitalist Call for Acute Care and Trauma Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Neurosurgery, Gastroenterology, and Urology. These are some of the most profitable service lines for hospitals, the most difficult to recruit for, and will be key to filling acute care beds.

We have upgraded the traditional call model, which allows us to deliver a superior yet more cost-effective service that drives new revenue to offset costs. Because we are based in the hospital, we provide a more integrated and cost-effective patient experience that improves our partner hospital’s competitive position.

About

We Answer the Call for Better Surgical Coverage.

Your surgical call coverage should be a strategic asset, not an expensive headache. Let us transform the way hospital-based specialty medicine operates in your community--and improve your competitive position! We are an innovative provider of permanent specialty practice models. We provide quality, engaged physicians committed to fulfilling our hospital partners' goals and initiatives.

Our Goals

  • Superior service and outcomes
  • Growth in market share
  • Higher patient satisfaction scores
  • Positive perception of the hospital within the community

Benefits to the Hospital

  • Reduced reliance on locum tenens through enhanced recruitment
  • Eliminate transfers due to lack of call coverage
  • Improved revenue
  • Utilization optimization
  • Enhanced positioning for Trauma and Stroke Centers
  • Better patient access

We Work Differently for Better Results

Our focused approach provides operational, clinical, and strategic advantages to enhance the enterprise value of our hospital partners’ specialty service lines.

Surgical Colleagues Operational Model

We concentrate on:

  • Recruitment: We offer an unmatched quality of life and a rewarding practice environment to recruit and retain the best candidates.

  • Process: We continuously review and fine-tune our processes to develop best practices and reduce practice variability.

  • Execution: We install proven systems, key infrastructure, and effective leadership to support our physicians and practices.

  • Accountability: We put a percentage of our fee at risk for key performance metrics, and our contract can be terminated without cause.

Surgical Colleagues Clinical Model

We focus on:

  • Providing a stable team of physicians to improve consistency and collaboration

  • Developing best practices to reduce unnecessary utilization and costs

  • Being closer to the patient to provide more responsive care, better care collaboration, with more frequent rounding and earlier discharges

Surgical Colleagues Strategical Model

We look to impact:

  • The cost of care

  • Service and access to increase market share

  • Physician alignment and collaboration to improve patient outcomes and health

“I just want to say publicly that working with Robin Brooks and Surgical Colleagues over a very long period of time has been (and will always be) a great pleasure of mine. Most recently, she gave up a Saturday over Labor Day weekend, on her time, to help us out of a jam. Trusted friends and colleagues like that should be recognized as such.”
Physician Executive, Orthopedic Service Line, Trinity Health of New England
Physician Director, Connecticut Joint Replacement Institute
President, Connecticut Joint Replacement Surgeons, LLC
“We’ve got the third busiest ER in the state, and in the past, we spent a lot of time transferring out trauma cases,” Dr. Morrison said, “because we couldn’t handle them. Since we started the hospitalist program, the case volume coming out of the ED has increased by 350%, and our community orthopedic surgeons have seen their elective caseloads increase by 10%. Basically, it’s working out for everyone.”
“We have a tremendous team of orthopedic surgeons through Surgical Colleagues, and this has given us a de facto ortho trauma program because the surgeons are there and are highly experienced. Our volumes are up, and our patient satisfaction in the ED has improved. Our community surgeons are relieved to have their call responsibility removed and delighted to be able to reallocate more of their time to elective cases.”

Proven Results

Times have changed, and so have we. Our value proposition has evolved to reflect our performance and contributions in an accountable care environment.

Our Model

Comprehensive and More Focused Approach Provides Greater Value

We take an entrepreneurial approach to understanding the competitive pressures in every market and diagnosing the best strategies to optimize our contributions. All of our models are designed by surgeons to create recruiting advantages in this increasingly competitive environment.

Our unique model provides 24/7 Specialty ED Call coverage, onsite physician leadership, follow up care via hospital-based clinic, rounds, consults, inpatient and outpatient surgeries, discharge planning, operational expertise, and proven infrastructure to support our practices. Relieving the local specialists of call improves their access to new patients and perform more elective surgeries at the hospital. Improving call coverage will decrease outmigration and attract higher acuity patients, resulting in more emergent surgeries.

Everyone WINS! The hospitals see more surgeries, local physicians see more patients, and patients receive better service.

We have also broadened our scope of care to include and support an elective component to augment specialty coverage for hospitals that want/need to improve patient access. Integrating our emergent and elective models have provided tighter physician alignment, new revenues, lower costs, and recruiting advantages.

Our Services

  • Acute Care and Trauma Surgery
  • Orthopedic Surgery
  • Neurosurgery
  • Gastroenterology
  • Urology

Key Advantages

  • An innovative, value-driven model
  • Unmatched experience and expertise
  • Proven infrastructure and accountability
  • A collaborative, hospital-based partnership
  • A successful recruitment model
We Answer the “Call” for Better Surgical Coverage
Community &
Patients WIN
Local Network of
Physicians WIN
Hospitals &
Health Systems WIN
Improved
community access
Follow up patient
care improves continuity
of care & reduces
Hospitals &
physicians see
more surgeries
  • Patients receive
    more efficient care
  • Receive better service
    around the clock
  • Call relief
  • Increased ED referrals
  • More time to focus on practice
  • Better quality of life
  • ED Call becomes strategic asset
  • Superior service
  • Attract higher acuity patients
  • Improved bottom line

Recruitment and Retention

All of our practice models have been designed to create recruiting advantages in this increasingly competitive healthcare area. Surgical Colleagues provides the best work/life balance in the industry. We offer attractive compensation, malpractice insurance, professional fee billing, and practice management expertise to provide a more attractive practice environment.

We also recruit a stable team of board-certified surgeons with the skill set commensurate with your hospital designation. We offer a different, less-complicated practice option that was designed by surgeons to provide a better alternative to the traditional model. As a result, we experience very little turnover! Our retention rate is more than 95% for all our specialties.

Physician and Administrative Leadership

Surgical Colleagues is a seasoned team of healthcare executives and surgeons with decades of experience developing and managing successful surgical hospitalist programs. We have a unique commitment to innovation and strive to be the absolute best partner for hospitals looking to deliver value, quality patient care, and satisfaction.

Team

Pioneers in Specialty Hospitalist Services

We have the experience and unique qualifications necessary to be successful in the specialty hospitalist field. Our leaders pioneered the design and implementation of these programs in more than 50 hospitals nationwide.

Photo of Chris Eaton

Chris Eaton

Founder, Chief Development Officer

Chris has more than 40 years of healthcare experience as a senior sales executive. He has a successful track record of developing new services, territories and sales teams for innovative companies that were trailblazers in Emergency Medicine (National Director of Sales for Spectrum Emergency Care 1982-1997), Diversified Post Acute Services (Senior Vice President for RehabCare Group 1997-2008) and Specialty Hospitalist Programs (Vice President of Business Development for Delphi/TeamHealth 2008-2015). Chris’s breadth of experience and expertise in articulating new ideas and physician strategies to healthcare executives has enabled him to develop win-win solutions that result in long-term customer relationships. He has the vision and track record to position Surgical Colleagues as an innovator of Specialty Hospitalist solutions to help hospitals improve their performance in a value based healthcare system.

Photo of Gene Krumanocker

Gene Krumanocker

Founder, Chief Operating Officer

Gene is a professional healthcare administrator with more than 25 years of management experience in hospital and physician group practice operations.  He was among the original leaders at Delphi Healthcare Partners and helped pioneer the surgical hospitalist model.  Gene has extensive experience designing and implementing hospital-based programs and providing high-quality client services.  He is keenly sensitive to hospital/physician relationships, medical staff politics and the financial realities in today’s environment.

Photo of Robin Brooks

Robin Brooks

Senior Vice President of Operations

Robin serves as the Senior Vice President of Operations for Surgical Colleagues. With more than 25 years of experience in healthcare, Robin offers expertise in physician recruitment, contracting, leadership development, practice management and client relations. She served as Senior Vice President for a nationally recognized hospital-based physician management company, Vice President of Operations for Delphi Healthcare Partners and Senior Director for a hospital’s physician services department. As one of the more experienced executives in the field, Robin is proficient in hospital-based program development, management and operations. Her enthusiasm and commitment to excellence is known and respected throughout the industry.

James A. Killeffer, MD, FAANS

National Medical Director for Neurosurgery

As a Board Certified Neurosurgeon actively practicing at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville (a Level 1 Trauma Center and Comprehensive Stroke Center) he has two decades of experience in academic and clinical neurosurgery. He is Assistant Professor and Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, has served as Chairman of the Neurosciences Department at Fort Sander's Regional Medical Center (a Comprehensive Stroke Center), is immediate Past President of the Tennessee Neurosurgical Society, has chaired the Contract and Finance Committee and served on the Board of Directors of a 200+ physician multi-specialty IPA, served as President of University Neurosurgery PC for, has successfully negotiated multiple contracts for neurosurgical and multi-specialty physician reimbursement, and has held numerous hospital staff credentialing and leadership positions.

His extensive clinical and administrative experience enables Surgical Colleagues to work with clients to develop customized clinical neurosurgery programs tailored to the institution's individual needs, goals, and resources. Dr. Killeffer’s physician leadership and academic experience ensures that we can recruit and vet superlative neurosurgeons whose training and abilities are ideally suited to the client's individual neurosurgery program.

Kurt Ehlert, MD

Strategic Advisor, Orthopedics and Acute Care Surgery

Kurt Ehlert, MD is an orthopedic surgeon and physician executive presently serving as Strategic Advisor, Orthopedics for Surgical Colleagues. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Medical College of Wisconsin’s medical school and orthopedic residency. After serving in the United States Air Force, he worked in private practice in Milwaukee and Raleigh. For the last several years, he has played a key role in the development and maturation of the orthopedic and general surgery hospitalist model, working with hospitals across the country of various sizes and complexities.

Dr. Ehlert is a recognized national expert on the orthopedic hospitalist model and has spoken at many regional and national  conferences and published a number of articles on this new, expanding mode of acute orthopedic care. In addition to his Strategic Advisor role, he currently works as an orthopedic hospitalist for WakeMed in Raleigh, North Carolina. He received his Certified Physician Executive degree from the American Association for Physician Leadership in 2015.