Surgical Affiliates’ Partnership with Kern Medical Conveys Key Benefits of Our Surgical Hospitalist Programs
Surgical Affiliates has established a new partnership with Kern Medical, a Level II trauma center in Bakersfield, California, to enhance patient care in providing 24/7 acute care and trauma surgical services. The new partnership supports Kern Medical’s commitment to providing the highest quality of emergency surgical services – as the only trauma center serving patients in California’s southern Central Valley– and illustrates our depth of expertise in providing hospitals with an advanced acute care surgical model that delivers the highest level of acute care and trauma surgical services to patients.
Kern Medical is a leading Central Valley healthcare organization featuring a 222-bed hospital offering a comprehensive range of primary care and specialty clinics. As the area’s only trauma center and teaching hospital, Kern Medical provides services that are unique in the region. As part of the partnership, Surgical Affiliates will provide Kern Medical with a surgical hospitalist program delivering an enhanced suite of surgical services including a dedicated, in-house team of board-certified trauma and acute care surgeons who will implement evidence-based guidelines in providing round-the-clock care to patients entering the Emergency Department.
In establishing a highly qualified team to provide emergency surgical support, surgeries can be performed more quickly – leading to improved outcomes for patients and hospitals. Also, the accessible, high-quality trauma and acute care programs we help to establish enable hospitals such as Kern Medical to create a culture of “yes,” typically reducing the need for local patients to be transferred to other facilities to receive treatment for serious conditions requiring prompt surgery.
The surgical team at Kern Medical will provide patients with a systematic, personalized approach to care that is the cornerstone of the Surgical Affiliates acute care surgical model. A core benefit of our surgical hospitalist programs is that our highly qualified surgeons manage patients as a team in accordance with evidence-based guidelines, reducing variations in care and helping to standardize best practices across our programs. This standardization of care ensures that every patient receives the highest level of care available and leads to improved patient outcomes and better performance for hospitals. Also, Kern Medical’s experienced surgical team will be supported and led by a dedicated medical director focused on maintaining high-quality standards and efficient clinic operations, alleviating administrative duties from the surgical team and allowing surgeons to focus more of their time on patient care.
“Our partnership with Kern Medical goes beyond the provision of trauma and emergency surgical care – which is core to the mission of Kern Medical. We are also committed to ensuring the service will support the graduate medical education programs at Kern Medical,” said Surgical Affiliates President and CEO Lynette Scherer, MD, FACS.
