IPC The Hospitalist Company Enters Agreement to Provide Exclusive Hospitalist Services to Two Massachusetts Hospitals

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc. (Nasdaq: IPCM), the leading national hospitalist group practice company, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Northeast Hospital Corporation to provide exclusive hospitalist services to two of their hospitals: Beverly Hospital in Beverly, MA and Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, MA. The Northeast agreement represents a further expansion for IPC in the New England market, where the company already has a well-established presence.

Under the terms of the agreement, IPC physicians will care for unassigned patients (those without a primary care physician), and for hospitalized patients referred to IPC by community physicians on the medical staff of the hospitals. Staffing for the two programs will consist of hospitalists previously employed by the hospitals plus new physicians recruited by IPC. The programs have a combined annualized volume of approximately 50,000 patient encounters.

R. Jeffrey Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer for IPC, commented, "We are very pleased that Northeast has selected IPC for its hospitalist service. Outsourcing is a growing trend among hospitals seeking to augment the effectiveness and efficiency of their hospitalist programs. We welcome the high quality team of Northeast's hospitalists to the IPC family and are looking forward to a mutually rewarding partnership with Beverly and Addison Gilbert Hospitals."

Pauline M. Pike, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Beverly Hospital, stated, "After a thorough assessment of our hospital medicine program, we decided to outsource to IPC because of its extensive expertise in managing hospitalist programs and its commitment to delivering high quality inpatient care. Of special interest are the unique capabilities of IPC-Link®, a proprietary practice management system that organizes the entire hospitalist practice around post-discharge transition of care, real-time clinical communications for the medical team, and in-depth reporting to hospital management on key quality and performance metrics. With IPC as our partner, we will continue to enhance the hospitalist service we provide to our patients as well as to referring physicians in the communities we serve."

About IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc.

IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc. (Nasdaq: IPCM) is a leading physician group practice company focused on the delivery of hospitalist medicine and related facility-based services. IPC's physicians and affiliated providers manage the care of patients in coordination with primary care physicians and specialists. The Company offers its providers the comprehensive training, information technology, and management support systems necessary to improve the quality and reduce the cost of patient care in the facilities it serves. For more information, visit the IPC website at www.hospitalist.com.

About Beverly Hospital

Beverly Hospital is a regional referral hospital providing leading-edge, patient-centered care to North Shore and Cape Ann residents.  Service highlights include a new integrated Cardiovascular Suite providing the latest interventional cardiology and radiology, and vascular surgery capabilities; a Level II Special Care Nursery supported through collaboration with Children's Hospital Boston; an on-site Endoscopy Suite and a Cancer Care Center.  The Beverly Hospital Emergency Department is a verified Level III Trauma Center and DPH-designated Stroke Center. All of these specialty services are supported by a geographically distributed base of more than 125 primary care providers.

About Addison Gilbert Hospital

Addison Gilbert Hospital is a medical/surgical acute care facility in Gloucester, Massachusetts, providing leading-edge, patient-centered care to Cape Ann residents.  The hospital, founded in 1889, is the primary provider of emergency care to the residents of the Cape Ann community with over 14,000 visits each year. Community needs are also well served through the state-of-the-art Gorton's Specialty and Cancer Care Center which opened in 2009, rehabilitation services which has over 20,000 visits each year, and the Senior Adult Unit, which provides a unique acute medical care program for seniors who also struggle with behavioral health issues.

SOURCE IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc.