Sound Physicians Recruitment Results

Leading Hospitalist Organization hires more than 200 Physicians in 2012

Tacoma, Wash. – March 14, 2013 – Sound Physicians, a leading hospitalist organization focused on driving improvements in quality, satisfaction and financial performance of inpatient healthcare delivery, recorded a strong year of recruiting success, hiring 212 physician colleagues in 2012.

The average recruitment time was 102 days from the start of the search to hire, well ahead of the industry benchmark of 180 days for internal medicine physicians. Today, with more than 600 hospitalist colleagues, Sound Physicians employs approximately one out of every 50 hospitalists practicing in U.S. hospitals.

“Our hospital partners rely on our core competency of recruiting exceptional physicians in a timely manner,” said Rob Bessler, MD, CEO of Sound Physicians. “We’ve built a strong recruitment team that is incredibly effective at recruiting team members to support new hospitalist programs to our organization as well as to support growth in existing hospitalist programs.”

“We offer a sustainable career with a manageable workload and the necessary support infrastructure hospitalists need,” said Bessler. “As a physician-led organization, we understand what our physicians need to build a successful career and an exceptional hospital medicine practice.”

John R. McLain, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Southern Regional Medical Center in Atlanta, Ga., commented on Sound Physicians’ recruiting expertise, “We really wanted to make sure we had experienced proven physicians who could work well with referral sources and specialists. That was the type of physicians that Sound Physicians brought to the table.”

Sound Physicians is also able to provide interim physicians to support hospitalist teams, ensuring that all programs are 100% staffed on any given day. ECHO Locum Tenens is an affiliate organization of Sound Physicians.

“Sound Physicians understands the urgency of the needs of the hospital, the patients and the needs of the existing hospitalist team,” McLain said of Sound Physicians’ ability to staff temporary physicians until permanent physicians started on the service. The hospitalist team’s focus and improvement in rounding on and discharging patients earlier is resulting in early improvements in length of stay and throughput of patients from the emergency department, improvements McLain said he wasn’t fully expecting until recruitment of permanent physicians was complete.

“I’m very impressed today,” McLain said. “I really believe that we chose well and that Sound Physicians is delivering on what they said they would.”