At the center of the System is Hamilton Medical Center, a 282-bed hospital with a national reputation for excellence and innovation.
Included within the hospital walls are centers of excellance for mental health, diabetes treatment, cancer care and maternal and infant care. The Level II trauma center is the seventh busiest in the state and was recently renovated to provide enhanced facilities for trauma, intermediate and ambulatory emergency care. Hamilton's diagnostic facilities are state-of-the-arrt including a fully accredited laboratory and a convenient magnetic resonance imaging and outpatient neurodiagnostic center.
The active medical staff at Hamilton is strong, numbering 120 physicians and dentist representing 28 specialties. Most physician offices are clustered near the hospital, making Dalton's a largely centralized medical community. For a free copy of a Medical Staff Guide and map, call 706-272-6100.
The first of Hamilton's services to move outside the hospital walls was its home health care and hospice services, launched in the early '80s. Last year, home health and hospice nurses made more than 85,000 patient visits and opened branch offices in nearby Murray and Gordon Counties. As the practice of medicine moves out of the hospital, it is interesting to consider that, on an average day, Hamilton treats four times as many patients in their homes as inside the confines of the hospital.
Gordon Specialty Physicians in neighboring Calhoun, is staffed by specialist from HMH medical staff who can provide services not otherwise offered in that area. In Catoosa County to the north, HMH opened North Georgia Family Physicians, staffed by family and specialty physicians to provide primary and specialty care there.
Recently, Hamilton and the Whitfield County Health Department began operating the Hamilton Healthmobile, a 40-foot mobil clinic that takes primary health care services out to medically deficient populations in out community. It is not unusual to see the Healthmobile parked in a church parking lot, a mobile-home park, a soup kitchen or an elementary school. Nurses on board provide immunizations, medical testing and treatment of minor illnesses and injuries with charges based on ability to pay.
Hamilton led the way in hospitalbased wellness programs, opening Bradley Wellness Center in 1986. The 54,000 square foot Center has been a national model and praised by no less than aerobic exercise pioneer Dr. Kenneth Cooper.
Recognizing that it is bad lifestyle choices that lead to most illness and injury, Bradley Wellness Center offers Choices, a series of three lifestyle modification tracks that get and keep participants on the path to better health. Choices is customized to fit most budgets and includes programs in healthy cooking and eating, creative coping and an array of fitness programs. Whether an ultra-fit marathoner, an overweight couch potato or recovering heart attack patient, there is a place at Bradley Wellness Center for everyone.
Hamilton has been a strong partner with industry, developing programs that promote wellness and injury prevention. There is Industrial Health Nursing that sends nurses into the worksite to provide nursing services; Workstart, a division of Hamilton's Whiteside Department of Rehabilitation Care, which offers rehabilitation services for work-related injuries; the employee assistance program as well as inpatient and outpatient services of Westcott Center; and Medplan, Hamilton's new hospital and physician preferred provider organization (PPO) that is finding enthusiastic support among local businesses.
Accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), Hamilton continues on its quest to "bring quality to life in North Georgia." The next decade will no doubt be one of change, yet, Hamilton's commitment to keeping patients the highest priority will remain constant.
