Hospitalist
While an inpatient at Samaritan Hospital, your admitting physician may take advantage of our Hospitalist Program, run by Cogent Hospitalist Management Group (Cogent HMG). If that is the case, your health care will be facilitated by a hospitalist - a board certified, internal medicine physician who specializes in inpatient care.
A hospitalist does not manage a private practice, and is physically present at Samaritan Hospital 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This presents a more frequent and prolonged exposure to inpatients and their families, which promotes improved communication, understanding and patient satisfaction.
Most notably, hospitalists are able to facilitate the admission and management of inpatients who have no local primary care physician. Upon discharge from the hospital, arrangements will be made for these inpatients to receive follow up care with a local physician.
If you have a primary care physician, you will be released to that physician’s care upon discharge. Throughout your hospital stay, from admission to discharge, the hospitalist maintains close communication with your primary care physician, having access to all pertinent medical records and information.
Dr. James Mooney and Dr. Alexander Tucker are the physicians providing full-time hospitalist coverage, with other physicians serving as part-time hospitalists.
Dr. Mooney returns to Ashland, where he worked as an independent practitioner in a private practice from 1997 until 2002, before leaving to serve as the clinical manager of a community-based outpatient Cleveland VA Medical Center, located in Mansfield. After five years with the VA, Dr. Mooney joined the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 2007, serving as a staff physician at the Clinic’s Wooster location. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1994. Dr. Mooney serves as the Cogent HMG Site Director for Samaritan.
Dr. Tucker practiced Internal Medicine at Licking Memorial Professional Corporation from 1998 to 2006. Later in 2006, Dr. Tucker began private practice in Ashland and is now a full-time hospitalist at Samaritan. He graduated from the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
