Crestwood Medical Center is a 180-bed acute care community hospital with approximately 1,000 healthcare professionals and a mission to improve our patients’ quality of life and enhance the well-being of our community by providing exceptional care and service in an environment that is compassionate, safe, efficient, and team-oriented. Crestwood Medical Center will be the primary training location for the Family Medicine Residency Program with services that include an emergency department, inpatient and surgical services as well as diagnostic imaging, laboratory, maternity care, nutrition, pediatrics and pharmacy services.
Our ambulatory clinics include primary care, medicine and surgical sub-specialties, pain management, wound care, rehabilitation services, an ALS clinic, sleep lab and the resident’s continuity clinic (e.g., Family Medicine Practice or “FMP”). Residents training at this participating site will be integrated into our team-oriented working environment with the full support of hospital administration, the medical staff, the program’s faculty and staff and all other valued members of the patient care team.
Crestwood Medical Center is also a busy learning organization with a strong history of training undergraduate physicians – and now with our new graduate medical education initiative, Crestwood Medical Center Family Medicine residents will work alongside Internal Medicine residents from our ACGME-accredited program directed by Akram Haggag, MD and hone their skills as team leaders and physician educators with third- and fourth-year medical students from the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine and Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine-Auburn.
Opened in 2022, Crestwood Medical Center Family Medicine Health & Wellness Center is the sole Family Medicine Practice (FMP) where residents will receive and maintain the health of a dedicated panel of patients. The patient panel served is both representative of the rich diversity and demographics of the ever-expanding Huntsville, Alabama community and meets the educational needs of residents throughout training. Located within 600 feet of the hospital, the FMP is fully dedicated to the residency program with over 4,800 square feet on each floor. Residents are supervised, trained and mentored by dedicated and qualified program leaders (program director, associate program director and core faculty).
With over 115,000 family medicine patient visits in its ambulatory network, the FMP is projected to obtain 3,500 visits in its first year, over 9,000 visits in its second year, and over 20,000 visits in its third year. These projections are conservative when considering the primary care shortage within our community. Our plan is to graduate each resident with significantly more patient visits than required by graduation (our current estimate is 2,472 patients by the end of training).
The strategic design and placement of the FMP in such close proximity to the hospital is intended to positively impact and reinforce resident and faculty well-being and safety, continuity of quality care between the inpatient and outpatient settings and support the resident’s ability to focus on their educational journey through the program. Review of practice performance metrics will occur at least quarterly by program leadership and residents to ensure the attainment and maintenance of quality education, lifelong learning, performance improvement and expansion of primary care in our community.
We are excited to meet and welcome the first class of family medicine residents on July 1, 2023.