Message from the Chief

Welcome to the Inpatient Medicine Division. Our division was created with the goal of providing a positive impact on the clinical care delivered at the two hospital campuses in Tucson – Banner UMC Tucson and South. The mission of our division is to provide quality patient care, educating the next generation of health-care providers, teachers and leaders, and pursuing outcomes research—always with an eye toward improving the care we provide our patients.

With more than 30 hospitalist faculty members from diverse backgrounds and interests in our division, we are one of the largest divisions in the Department of Medicine. Our Faculty members are involved in process improvement, informatics, patient safety and quality improvement, and medical education. Our division is vital in operations at both Tucson and South campuses. We admit close to 50 percent of patients to Inpatient Medicine teams and the bulk of those is to the hospitalists-run teams.

Over the years, we've developed strategic partnerships with other departments and services at both campuses. We believe in rendering quality care through excellent teamwork. We work with our Clinical Performance Assessment & Improvement (CPAI) team to ensure that we receive real-time feedback on our practices. This allows us to focus on an area we could potentially improve quickly and efficiently. The Inpatient Division is involved in several System Strategic Initiatives to:

Ensure excellent patient care delivered to our patients, so they get better as quickly and safely as possible.

Incorporate the latest evidence-based practices, so we can lower the variability in care and optimize outcomes.

We work with and without residents—new physicians in training—in providing care to our patients. We work with a multidisciplinary team of care providers to deliver efficient and high quality care. The Inpatient Medicine Division at Banner – UMC Tucson and South provide 24/7 supervision to our residents and students on hospital wards. Several of our faculty members are in leadership positions related to resident and medical student education.

We are also exploring the option of starting a fellowship program to train residents in "Hospital Medicine" and develop them into future health-care leaders. The program has been approved by the UA Graduate Medical Education office and should launch soon.

Last but not least, I am proud of our dynamic group of faculty members who helped improve operations at both campuses and shape our program to be one of the most valued service lines. I welcome you to explore this website to learn more about our faculty as well as our program.

Tejo Vemulapalli, MD, MBA
Assistant Professor of Medicine, UA Department of Medicine
Chief, Division of Inpatient Medicine, UA College of Medicine – Tucson
Medical Director, Inpatient Services at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson