A Bermudian doctor is spearheading a new concept in patient care at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH).

Arlene Basden is the director of Hospitalist Services for the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

The Hospitalist Programme was launched in July 2008 and aims to expand the level of care a patient receives at the Island's public hospital.

Based on a US concept now being adopted in countries around the world, a hospitalist or consultant internist is a specialist physician who works onsite to care for you while you are in hospital.

A patient can choose to be cared for by their GP or a hospitalist team, but the hospitalist will still communicate with your GP, providing updates on your care.

A hospitalist team will consist of a hospitalist and a house officer who will discuss your daily care with you. They can also call on an interdisciplinary team of other specialist physicians and health workers to coordinate your care.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board says: "The goal of the programme is to make sure the care received by patients in our hospital is of a consistently high quality.

"It is difficult for GPs to spend the time with patients in hospital while simultaneously trying to care for patients in their offices.

"Additionally, hospitalists have specialised in hospital care, which means they have specialised in the kinds of the illnesses and conditions people have in hospital.

"Along with house officers, they are also onsite so it is easier for them to see patients regularly, follow up on care instructions, coordinate with other healthcare professionals and respond to emergencies."

The Hospitalist Programme may only have started last year but already it has been given the thumbs up from both patients and staff at KEMH.

The programme is "evolving" says Dr. Basden, with constant developments and additional staff.

"The patients like the level of care they receive, they feel they are really being looked after. There's a lot of attention to detail," she added.

Currently the consultant internist has four hospitalists under her, with a fifth due to join the KEMH team next month.

"The Hospitalist Programme is growing and is a positive step for the delivery of healthcare in Bermuda," says Dr. Basden.

"We wanted to deliver high-quality, consistent care and the programme has really evolved over the past year. It is still evolving but so far we have had very positive feedback, and the nurses love it."

Supported by Accreditation Canada, Bermuda's Hospitalist Programme is "on par with what they do in North America and England," says Dr. Basden.

"We currently have four teams rounding the patients. We look after the majority in the hospital, and have about 100 patients at present."

A typical day for KEMH's hospitalists starts at 8 a.m. with a visit to patients in ICU. Then at around 10 a.m. they start 'rounding' with the medical officers, visiting patients on the other wards.

After a brief lunch break at 1 p.m. the rounding then resumes until about 3 p.m.

"The medical officer pre-rounds and the hospitalist then sees the patient with the medical officer, so the patient is seen twice a day," says Dr. Basden.

"Depending on the seriousness of their condition, we can see the patient up to four times a day."

The hospitalists also provide a teaching role to the junior staff on the wards.

Dr. Basden says: "Hospitalist is a relatively new term which was coined in North America and which is given to a hospital-based internist, a specialist in internal medicine.

"A hospitalist is a senior role all my hospitalists are very well trained and have postgraduate qualifications.

"We deal with the patient as a whole anything from coronary artery disease to kidney disease, to hypertension. It's a very broad spectrum of conditions which we deal with."

She says: "We take a multi-disciplinary approach to patient care. We also have meetings with family members and correspond with the patient's GP to give them updates.

"We also work with social workers, the nurse, and physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists."

Dr. Basden, 41, grew up in Sandys and attended West End Primary School and Warwick Academy. She completed two years at Bermuda College before studying for her B.Sc in Biochemistry at Dalhousie University, Canada.

A medical degree at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad followed. She then completed six-and-a-half years of postgraduate residency in hospitals in the North West of England.

Dr. Basden is also a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

As the director of Hospitalist Services at KEMH, she also has an administrative role which involves recruitment, scheduling and attending committee meetings with other health specialists and officials.

"The Hospitalist Programme is a service which requires good team work," she says.