MSU and Lansing's Sparrow Hospital have formed a partnership to bring in a pediatric hospitalist, a new addition that will improve care for children with serious illness and disease in Michigan, Sparrow officials said.

A hospitalist is a doctor who practices exclusively with the hospital, Sparrow spokesman John Lux said. He added that Sparrow has had hospitalists in other departments in the hospital, but this will be the first hospitalist that will work in pediatrics and also be a member of MSU faculty.

Lux said it is always beneficial for Sparrow to partner with MSU because it helps them stay connected with the community and keeps their treatment up to date.

"When we are partnered with MSU - it keeps us on the cutting edge of technology and treatments," Lux said.

More than 20,000 children are treated at Sparrow Regional Children's Center every year, and 2,600 are admitted and have to stay the night. Those 2,600 are the ones that will benefit from the new hospitalist, Lux said.

He said children will especially benefit because their care will be coordinated better.

"It helps to coordinate care. When you have a primary care physician that is taking care of a child, he has to make a special trip," Lux said. "Now the hospitalist will be there and serve as the primary physician."

Lux said others who will benefit from the new hospitalist are MSU medical residents.

After graduation from medical school, medical students receive their degree but can't practice until they train as a resident under another doctor to get their specialization in something such as family practice or, in this case, pediatrics, said Dele Davies, chairman of the MSU Department of Pediatrics and Human Development.

"Basically you can imagine if you are a resident who is training, with 20 patients, 15 have different doctors, and you have to coordinate with 15 different doctors," Davies said. "Now you only have to deal with one or two doctors."

By making sure the patients and residents "get the best of it," Davies said the hospitalist will help MSU medical residents and also the patients.

"An advantage is that it enables all attention and individual care," Davies said. "Also, the management of the patient is a much more consistent approach."

Davies said that when there is a hospitalist, it has been shown that overall customer satisfaction increases.

Lux also said the hospitalist will help Sparrow and the medical residents treat patients more effectively.

"It helps MSU, it helps Sparrow, but most of all it helps the community," Lux said. "We are teaching a new generation of physicians at the highest level."