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Sustaining the evolution of PAs in hospital medicine
Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.
How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?
I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.
What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?
Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.
Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.
The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).
Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!
Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.
As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?
The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.
What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?
Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.
Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.
How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?
I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.
What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?
Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.
Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.
The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).
Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!
Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.
As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?
The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.
What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?
Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.
Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.
How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?
I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.
What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?
Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.
Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.
The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).
Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!
Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.
As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?
The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.
What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?
Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.
Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Hospital Medicine: An international specialty
This past fall, I had the honor of being invited to speak at a hospitalist physician conference in Tokyo. The conference was hosted by the Japanese Society of Hospital General Medicine (JSHGM) and was attended by over 800 hospitalists, including some from other East Asian countries.
The JSHGM is 7 years old and has 1,400 members; its growth mirroring the growth of practicing hospitalists in Japan. They wanted me to speak about the evolution of the hospitalist model in the United States and to learn more about their efforts to grow the nascent specialty in Japan. We also jointly wanted to discuss the opportunity for the JSHGM and the Society of Hospital Medicine to work together to benefit the hospitalist model in both countries.
This emerging partnership of the two societies is only the latest of a growing series of efforts on the part of SHM to support the growth of the hospitalist specialty internationally. It started with Canada in 2001, when a contingent of Canadian hospitalists requested to form their own chapter of SHM. They wanted to become the first international chapter and to join a group that has now grown to 56 state and regional chapters. Within a few years, the Canadian Chapter evolved to become its own independent and flourishing Canadian Society of Hospital Medicine.
More recently, SHM has helped develop chapters in Brazil and the Middle East, with more chapters being planned. The International Special Interest Forum at Hospital Medicine 2018 in Orlando in April expects attendees from Holland, Germany, Spain, Chile, Taiwan, China and more.
So why all of this activity by hospitalists in countries whose health systems are so different from ours and from each other’s? What is it about our specialty that has captured the interest of physicians, health systems, and governments from around the globe?
Talking to hospitalists from abroad, the answer is very consistent and very simple. It is the desire to lower cost and improve the quality of care. It turns out that the American health care system is not the only one that struggles with these issues. It seems that health care costs are too high everywhere and that the quest for higher quality, lower cost health care is a universal struggle. As Scottish-born health care economist Ian Morrison jokes, “Every health care system sucks in its own way.”
Let’s look at Japan. They have the longest average life expectancy in the world at 84 years, with about a quarter of their population over 65 years of age. On any given day, almost 14% of the population has a physician visit. Historically, they also have long hospital length of stays with current average length of stay anywhere between 14 and 21 days. This, of course, is very costly. … and in their single-payer system, the entire cost of this care falls on the Japanese government. And as birth rates in Japan have decreased, there are fewer taxpayers to bear the financial burden of the progressively aging and sicker population.
Canada has a different challenge. Also a single-payer system, their largest issue for the acutely ill is the availability of an open hospital bed. Although the system varies somewhat from province to province, it is typical that hospitals are given a total annual budget that must cover all expenses for the year, independent of the volume of patients. Since most hospitals are perpetually full, the discharge of a patient results in another new admission, which in turn actually costs the hospital more money. This perverse incentive keeps hospital beds full as patients wait for one to open (especially for any elective procedure). Adding to the problem, physicians are paid fee for service and therefore also have no incentive to discharge patients.
As Canadian citizens clamor for more access to care, the government looks for ways to lower excessively long length of stays. Wait times for elective surgeries are unacceptable with some patients coming to the United States for surgery that they must then pay for themselves. The result is mounting pressure to move to models of care that are more efficient and less wasteful.
It is no wonder that physicians and health care planners from Japan, Canada, and around the world have viewed with great interest what hospitalists have accomplished in the American health care system. They recognize the potential of this relatively new model to decrease hospital length of stays, lower health care costs, and improve outcomes. After all, this is what the hospitalist model was invented to accomplish – to create value not through high production, but by improving the efficiency of care delivery, overall quality of care, and contributing to improved hospital operations.
As unrelenting economic forces continue to put pressure on health care systems worldwide, it will be fascinating to follow and continue assessing the impact of the hospitalist model in nations where it is implemented. That includes, of course, in the United States, where the model is still very young and continually evolving.
In the meantime, SHM will continue to learn about and work with our international partners. This certainly will be the focus of a special “Hospital Medicine in Japan” session at Hospital Medicine 2018 along with the International Special Interest Forum. And for the first time, we will also have an International Lounge where our international members can meet with each other and our American members to share ideas and enthusiasm for the future of our specialty.
These are just the first steps to expanding the hospital medicine movement across the globe. SHM is optimistic about the future opportunities for international collaboration and is committed to supporting the growth of the specialty and its practitioners, not only in the United States, but worldwide.
Dr. Greeno is president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and senior adviser for medical affairs, TeamHealth.
This past fall, I had the honor of being invited to speak at a hospitalist physician conference in Tokyo. The conference was hosted by the Japanese Society of Hospital General Medicine (JSHGM) and was attended by over 800 hospitalists, including some from other East Asian countries.
The JSHGM is 7 years old and has 1,400 members; its growth mirroring the growth of practicing hospitalists in Japan. They wanted me to speak about the evolution of the hospitalist model in the United States and to learn more about their efforts to grow the nascent specialty in Japan. We also jointly wanted to discuss the opportunity for the JSHGM and the Society of Hospital Medicine to work together to benefit the hospitalist model in both countries.
This emerging partnership of the two societies is only the latest of a growing series of efforts on the part of SHM to support the growth of the hospitalist specialty internationally. It started with Canada in 2001, when a contingent of Canadian hospitalists requested to form their own chapter of SHM. They wanted to become the first international chapter and to join a group that has now grown to 56 state and regional chapters. Within a few years, the Canadian Chapter evolved to become its own independent and flourishing Canadian Society of Hospital Medicine.
More recently, SHM has helped develop chapters in Brazil and the Middle East, with more chapters being planned. The International Special Interest Forum at Hospital Medicine 2018 in Orlando in April expects attendees from Holland, Germany, Spain, Chile, Taiwan, China and more.
So why all of this activity by hospitalists in countries whose health systems are so different from ours and from each other’s? What is it about our specialty that has captured the interest of physicians, health systems, and governments from around the globe?
Talking to hospitalists from abroad, the answer is very consistent and very simple. It is the desire to lower cost and improve the quality of care. It turns out that the American health care system is not the only one that struggles with these issues. It seems that health care costs are too high everywhere and that the quest for higher quality, lower cost health care is a universal struggle. As Scottish-born health care economist Ian Morrison jokes, “Every health care system sucks in its own way.”
Let’s look at Japan. They have the longest average life expectancy in the world at 84 years, with about a quarter of their population over 65 years of age. On any given day, almost 14% of the population has a physician visit. Historically, they also have long hospital length of stays with current average length of stay anywhere between 14 and 21 days. This, of course, is very costly. … and in their single-payer system, the entire cost of this care falls on the Japanese government. And as birth rates in Japan have decreased, there are fewer taxpayers to bear the financial burden of the progressively aging and sicker population.
Canada has a different challenge. Also a single-payer system, their largest issue for the acutely ill is the availability of an open hospital bed. Although the system varies somewhat from province to province, it is typical that hospitals are given a total annual budget that must cover all expenses for the year, independent of the volume of patients. Since most hospitals are perpetually full, the discharge of a patient results in another new admission, which in turn actually costs the hospital more money. This perverse incentive keeps hospital beds full as patients wait for one to open (especially for any elective procedure). Adding to the problem, physicians are paid fee for service and therefore also have no incentive to discharge patients.
As Canadian citizens clamor for more access to care, the government looks for ways to lower excessively long length of stays. Wait times for elective surgeries are unacceptable with some patients coming to the United States for surgery that they must then pay for themselves. The result is mounting pressure to move to models of care that are more efficient and less wasteful.
It is no wonder that physicians and health care planners from Japan, Canada, and around the world have viewed with great interest what hospitalists have accomplished in the American health care system. They recognize the potential of this relatively new model to decrease hospital length of stays, lower health care costs, and improve outcomes. After all, this is what the hospitalist model was invented to accomplish – to create value not through high production, but by improving the efficiency of care delivery, overall quality of care, and contributing to improved hospital operations.
As unrelenting economic forces continue to put pressure on health care systems worldwide, it will be fascinating to follow and continue assessing the impact of the hospitalist model in nations where it is implemented. That includes, of course, in the United States, where the model is still very young and continually evolving.
In the meantime, SHM will continue to learn about and work with our international partners. This certainly will be the focus of a special “Hospital Medicine in Japan” session at Hospital Medicine 2018 along with the International Special Interest Forum. And for the first time, we will also have an International Lounge where our international members can meet with each other and our American members to share ideas and enthusiasm for the future of our specialty.
These are just the first steps to expanding the hospital medicine movement across the globe. SHM is optimistic about the future opportunities for international collaboration and is committed to supporting the growth of the specialty and its practitioners, not only in the United States, but worldwide.
Dr. Greeno is president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and senior adviser for medical affairs, TeamHealth.
This past fall, I had the honor of being invited to speak at a hospitalist physician conference in Tokyo. The conference was hosted by the Japanese Society of Hospital General Medicine (JSHGM) and was attended by over 800 hospitalists, including some from other East Asian countries.
The JSHGM is 7 years old and has 1,400 members; its growth mirroring the growth of practicing hospitalists in Japan. They wanted me to speak about the evolution of the hospitalist model in the United States and to learn more about their efforts to grow the nascent specialty in Japan. We also jointly wanted to discuss the opportunity for the JSHGM and the Society of Hospital Medicine to work together to benefit the hospitalist model in both countries.
This emerging partnership of the two societies is only the latest of a growing series of efforts on the part of SHM to support the growth of the hospitalist specialty internationally. It started with Canada in 2001, when a contingent of Canadian hospitalists requested to form their own chapter of SHM. They wanted to become the first international chapter and to join a group that has now grown to 56 state and regional chapters. Within a few years, the Canadian Chapter evolved to become its own independent and flourishing Canadian Society of Hospital Medicine.
More recently, SHM has helped develop chapters in Brazil and the Middle East, with more chapters being planned. The International Special Interest Forum at Hospital Medicine 2018 in Orlando in April expects attendees from Holland, Germany, Spain, Chile, Taiwan, China and more.
So why all of this activity by hospitalists in countries whose health systems are so different from ours and from each other’s? What is it about our specialty that has captured the interest of physicians, health systems, and governments from around the globe?
Talking to hospitalists from abroad, the answer is very consistent and very simple. It is the desire to lower cost and improve the quality of care. It turns out that the American health care system is not the only one that struggles with these issues. It seems that health care costs are too high everywhere and that the quest for higher quality, lower cost health care is a universal struggle. As Scottish-born health care economist Ian Morrison jokes, “Every health care system sucks in its own way.”
Let’s look at Japan. They have the longest average life expectancy in the world at 84 years, with about a quarter of their population over 65 years of age. On any given day, almost 14% of the population has a physician visit. Historically, they also have long hospital length of stays with current average length of stay anywhere between 14 and 21 days. This, of course, is very costly. … and in their single-payer system, the entire cost of this care falls on the Japanese government. And as birth rates in Japan have decreased, there are fewer taxpayers to bear the financial burden of the progressively aging and sicker population.
Canada has a different challenge. Also a single-payer system, their largest issue for the acutely ill is the availability of an open hospital bed. Although the system varies somewhat from province to province, it is typical that hospitals are given a total annual budget that must cover all expenses for the year, independent of the volume of patients. Since most hospitals are perpetually full, the discharge of a patient results in another new admission, which in turn actually costs the hospital more money. This perverse incentive keeps hospital beds full as patients wait for one to open (especially for any elective procedure). Adding to the problem, physicians are paid fee for service and therefore also have no incentive to discharge patients.
As Canadian citizens clamor for more access to care, the government looks for ways to lower excessively long length of stays. Wait times for elective surgeries are unacceptable with some patients coming to the United States for surgery that they must then pay for themselves. The result is mounting pressure to move to models of care that are more efficient and less wasteful.
It is no wonder that physicians and health care planners from Japan, Canada, and around the world have viewed with great interest what hospitalists have accomplished in the American health care system. They recognize the potential of this relatively new model to decrease hospital length of stays, lower health care costs, and improve outcomes. After all, this is what the hospitalist model was invented to accomplish – to create value not through high production, but by improving the efficiency of care delivery, overall quality of care, and contributing to improved hospital operations.
As unrelenting economic forces continue to put pressure on health care systems worldwide, it will be fascinating to follow and continue assessing the impact of the hospitalist model in nations where it is implemented. That includes, of course, in the United States, where the model is still very young and continually evolving.
In the meantime, SHM will continue to learn about and work with our international partners. This certainly will be the focus of a special “Hospital Medicine in Japan” session at Hospital Medicine 2018 along with the International Special Interest Forum. And for the first time, we will also have an International Lounge where our international members can meet with each other and our American members to share ideas and enthusiasm for the future of our specialty.
These are just the first steps to expanding the hospital medicine movement across the globe. SHM is optimistic about the future opportunities for international collaboration and is committed to supporting the growth of the specialty and its practitioners, not only in the United States, but worldwide.
Dr. Greeno is president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and senior adviser for medical affairs, TeamHealth.
SHM’s first institutional partner: Adfinitas Health
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has historically focused on meeting the needs of individual members of the hospital medicine team. Further investigation, however, revealed that the Society had members who were program directors, C-suite executives, multisite group leaders, and practice administrators who had more strategic needs, and SHM wanted to offer solutions that would also positively impact their staff.
One year ago, SHM launched a “listening tour” to gain an understanding of what some of these strategic objectives were and how the society might be able to assist. Representatives from SHM staff met with full teams from hospital systems as well as management companies and identified some common themes, including:
- Integrating nurse practitioners/physician assistants into their practices.
- Planning for growth and succession and incorporating SHM meetings, CME, and training into those plans.
- Proving the value of the hospital medicine program to the C-suite.
Adfinitas Health is the first organization to sign on as part of SHM’s institutional partnership program; it offers customized memberships with curated benefits to hospital medicine management companies and health systems with large hospitalist groups.
The Hospitalist recently sat down with Idara Umoh Nickelson, MBA, vice president of business development at Adfinitas Health, to discuss the partnership with SHM.
Why is Adfinitas Health choosing to become an institutional partner with SHM?
Adfinitas Health is a trusted partner to more than 50 diverse hospitals and post-acute facilities across Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. We are mission focused and led by our core values, which means we always lead with a patient-centered approach to care that produces higher patient satisfaction, better clinical outcomes, and greater value for our partners. We focus on bringing leading-edge practices and protocols to our partner facilities to drive quality and elevate care.
Our decision to become an institutional partner with SHM was simple. Besides being the voice of our industry, SHM plays a critical role in advancing the field of hospital medicine. We know that our providers look to SHM as a resource for clinical and professional development; by becoming an institutional partner, we hope to support that growth objective.
We are looking forward to the opportunity to advance the field of hospital medicine and drive practices and innovations that better support patient-centered care.
Which SHM resources and opportunities do you find most valuable for your providers?
The most valuable resources for our providers are the opportunities for learning and professional development. The education offerings are comprehensive and evidence based, which is critical. Whether a provider is looking to fulfill a continuing medical education requirement or needs information to help enhance their performance, we know that they will get what they need from SHM.
The annual conferences, chapter events, and training academies also are valuable to our company and providers. We provide core hospitalist programs that can be customized with integrated complementary services – such as palliative care, pain management, pediatrics, and critical care – based on the needs of the client. We also heavily integrate advance practice providers into our programs. Therefore, we rely on the diverse set of training and learning opportunities that SHM holds throughout the year.
What does it mean to your organization to be the first partner in this program?
Adfinitas cofounders Doug Mitchell, MD, and Hung Davis, MD, have been committed to advancing the field of hospital medicine for nearly 2 decades. They were early members of SHM, along with our other company partners and many of our providers. So, it is an honor to be the first institutional partner – certainly an important milestone in our corporate history. The company has grown from 1 hospital in 2007 to more than 50 hospital and post-acute partners across four states over the past 11 years.
What long-term benefits do you see this partnership offering to your hospitalists?
At our size and scale, the need for a more formal institutional partnership with SHM made perfect sense. We strive to be an employer of choice for hospitalists, including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Our focus on core values builds a culture of engaged, talented employees who feel supported as they progress in their careers. We strive to do all we can to support that growth, and this partnership will help us meet and exceed that goal.
What message are you sending Adfinitas Health hospitalists by partnering with SHM?
We are encouraging our hospitalists to take full advantage of the many learning opportunities and resources that this partnership will bring to bear. We will be actively promoting the customized training that we’ll be offering, as well as the ease of accessing content through the online SHM Learning Portal.
In addition, we want our hospitalists to be connected to the field and remain on the cutting edge of what is important and how best to care for patients. We’ll be encouraging them to be active and involved members at the state and national levels and leverage SHM to grow their professional network.
For more information on SHM’s institutional partnerships, please contact Debra Beach, SHM customer experience manager, at 267-702-2644 or DBeach@hospitalmedicine.org.
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has historically focused on meeting the needs of individual members of the hospital medicine team. Further investigation, however, revealed that the Society had members who were program directors, C-suite executives, multisite group leaders, and practice administrators who had more strategic needs, and SHM wanted to offer solutions that would also positively impact their staff.
One year ago, SHM launched a “listening tour” to gain an understanding of what some of these strategic objectives were and how the society might be able to assist. Representatives from SHM staff met with full teams from hospital systems as well as management companies and identified some common themes, including:
- Integrating nurse practitioners/physician assistants into their practices.
- Planning for growth and succession and incorporating SHM meetings, CME, and training into those plans.
- Proving the value of the hospital medicine program to the C-suite.
Adfinitas Health is the first organization to sign on as part of SHM’s institutional partnership program; it offers customized memberships with curated benefits to hospital medicine management companies and health systems with large hospitalist groups.
The Hospitalist recently sat down with Idara Umoh Nickelson, MBA, vice president of business development at Adfinitas Health, to discuss the partnership with SHM.
Why is Adfinitas Health choosing to become an institutional partner with SHM?
Adfinitas Health is a trusted partner to more than 50 diverse hospitals and post-acute facilities across Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. We are mission focused and led by our core values, which means we always lead with a patient-centered approach to care that produces higher patient satisfaction, better clinical outcomes, and greater value for our partners. We focus on bringing leading-edge practices and protocols to our partner facilities to drive quality and elevate care.
Our decision to become an institutional partner with SHM was simple. Besides being the voice of our industry, SHM plays a critical role in advancing the field of hospital medicine. We know that our providers look to SHM as a resource for clinical and professional development; by becoming an institutional partner, we hope to support that growth objective.
We are looking forward to the opportunity to advance the field of hospital medicine and drive practices and innovations that better support patient-centered care.
Which SHM resources and opportunities do you find most valuable for your providers?
The most valuable resources for our providers are the opportunities for learning and professional development. The education offerings are comprehensive and evidence based, which is critical. Whether a provider is looking to fulfill a continuing medical education requirement or needs information to help enhance their performance, we know that they will get what they need from SHM.
The annual conferences, chapter events, and training academies also are valuable to our company and providers. We provide core hospitalist programs that can be customized with integrated complementary services – such as palliative care, pain management, pediatrics, and critical care – based on the needs of the client. We also heavily integrate advance practice providers into our programs. Therefore, we rely on the diverse set of training and learning opportunities that SHM holds throughout the year.
What does it mean to your organization to be the first partner in this program?
Adfinitas cofounders Doug Mitchell, MD, and Hung Davis, MD, have been committed to advancing the field of hospital medicine for nearly 2 decades. They were early members of SHM, along with our other company partners and many of our providers. So, it is an honor to be the first institutional partner – certainly an important milestone in our corporate history. The company has grown from 1 hospital in 2007 to more than 50 hospital and post-acute partners across four states over the past 11 years.
What long-term benefits do you see this partnership offering to your hospitalists?
At our size and scale, the need for a more formal institutional partnership with SHM made perfect sense. We strive to be an employer of choice for hospitalists, including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Our focus on core values builds a culture of engaged, talented employees who feel supported as they progress in their careers. We strive to do all we can to support that growth, and this partnership will help us meet and exceed that goal.
What message are you sending Adfinitas Health hospitalists by partnering with SHM?
We are encouraging our hospitalists to take full advantage of the many learning opportunities and resources that this partnership will bring to bear. We will be actively promoting the customized training that we’ll be offering, as well as the ease of accessing content through the online SHM Learning Portal.
In addition, we want our hospitalists to be connected to the field and remain on the cutting edge of what is important and how best to care for patients. We’ll be encouraging them to be active and involved members at the state and national levels and leverage SHM to grow their professional network.
For more information on SHM’s institutional partnerships, please contact Debra Beach, SHM customer experience manager, at 267-702-2644 or DBeach@hospitalmedicine.org.
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has historically focused on meeting the needs of individual members of the hospital medicine team. Further investigation, however, revealed that the Society had members who were program directors, C-suite executives, multisite group leaders, and practice administrators who had more strategic needs, and SHM wanted to offer solutions that would also positively impact their staff.
One year ago, SHM launched a “listening tour” to gain an understanding of what some of these strategic objectives were and how the society might be able to assist. Representatives from SHM staff met with full teams from hospital systems as well as management companies and identified some common themes, including:
- Integrating nurse practitioners/physician assistants into their practices.
- Planning for growth and succession and incorporating SHM meetings, CME, and training into those plans.
- Proving the value of the hospital medicine program to the C-suite.
Adfinitas Health is the first organization to sign on as part of SHM’s institutional partnership program; it offers customized memberships with curated benefits to hospital medicine management companies and health systems with large hospitalist groups.
The Hospitalist recently sat down with Idara Umoh Nickelson, MBA, vice president of business development at Adfinitas Health, to discuss the partnership with SHM.
Why is Adfinitas Health choosing to become an institutional partner with SHM?
Adfinitas Health is a trusted partner to more than 50 diverse hospitals and post-acute facilities across Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. We are mission focused and led by our core values, which means we always lead with a patient-centered approach to care that produces higher patient satisfaction, better clinical outcomes, and greater value for our partners. We focus on bringing leading-edge practices and protocols to our partner facilities to drive quality and elevate care.
Our decision to become an institutional partner with SHM was simple. Besides being the voice of our industry, SHM plays a critical role in advancing the field of hospital medicine. We know that our providers look to SHM as a resource for clinical and professional development; by becoming an institutional partner, we hope to support that growth objective.
We are looking forward to the opportunity to advance the field of hospital medicine and drive practices and innovations that better support patient-centered care.
Which SHM resources and opportunities do you find most valuable for your providers?
The most valuable resources for our providers are the opportunities for learning and professional development. The education offerings are comprehensive and evidence based, which is critical. Whether a provider is looking to fulfill a continuing medical education requirement or needs information to help enhance their performance, we know that they will get what they need from SHM.
The annual conferences, chapter events, and training academies also are valuable to our company and providers. We provide core hospitalist programs that can be customized with integrated complementary services – such as palliative care, pain management, pediatrics, and critical care – based on the needs of the client. We also heavily integrate advance practice providers into our programs. Therefore, we rely on the diverse set of training and learning opportunities that SHM holds throughout the year.
What does it mean to your organization to be the first partner in this program?
Adfinitas cofounders Doug Mitchell, MD, and Hung Davis, MD, have been committed to advancing the field of hospital medicine for nearly 2 decades. They were early members of SHM, along with our other company partners and many of our providers. So, it is an honor to be the first institutional partner – certainly an important milestone in our corporate history. The company has grown from 1 hospital in 2007 to more than 50 hospital and post-acute partners across four states over the past 11 years.
What long-term benefits do you see this partnership offering to your hospitalists?
At our size and scale, the need for a more formal institutional partnership with SHM made perfect sense. We strive to be an employer of choice for hospitalists, including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Our focus on core values builds a culture of engaged, talented employees who feel supported as they progress in their careers. We strive to do all we can to support that growth, and this partnership will help us meet and exceed that goal.
What message are you sending Adfinitas Health hospitalists by partnering with SHM?
We are encouraging our hospitalists to take full advantage of the many learning opportunities and resources that this partnership will bring to bear. We will be actively promoting the customized training that we’ll be offering, as well as the ease of accessing content through the online SHM Learning Portal.
In addition, we want our hospitalists to be connected to the field and remain on the cutting edge of what is important and how best to care for patients. We’ll be encouraging them to be active and involved members at the state and national levels and leverage SHM to grow their professional network.
For more information on SHM’s institutional partnerships, please contact Debra Beach, SHM customer experience manager, at 267-702-2644 or DBeach@hospitalmedicine.org.
Here are the ‘must-see’ sessions at HM18
Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018, the second-happiest place in Orlando – at least for hospitalists who want to be in the know.
The 2018 education program is a ride through the diverse world of hospital medicine, with sessions ranging from clinical updates to cutting-edge techniques, communication tools, building a satisfying career, and finding your way through tangles of red tape and policy.
Two tracks new for 2018 hone in on managing alternative providers and palliative care.
The half-day NP/PA track (beginning April 11 at 7:30 a.m.) recognizes these practitioners for their crucial roles in hospital medicine care delivery. Among the discussions aimed at hospitalists: Best practices in provider utilization and collaboration; supervision vs. collaboration; and challenging situations when working with mid-level providers.
The palliative care track (also a half day, starting April 11 at 10 a.m.) recognizes the crucial role hospitalists play in optimizing end-of-life care. Sessions will help hospitalists understand that role, and guide them in managing pain and other symptoms commonly encountered during this transitional time.
As for the rest of the meeting, picking favorites is as tough as picking between Disney’s Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain, said HM18 course director Dustin Smith, MD, SFHM, of Emory University, Atlanta. “We feel strongly that all offerings at the conference are ‘must-sees,’ and it’s why we offer repeat sessions of what we predict will be the most popular talks overall. Since there are so many good sessions competing for attendees at the same time, we wanted to make sure we offered these repeat sessions of common, high-yield clinical topics.”
The Repeated Sessions track is set for April 10, and runs a full day. The track includes these dynamic sessions:
- Updates in congestive heart failure: Pablo Quintero, MD; 11-11:40 a.m.
- He-who-shall-not-be-named: Updates in sepsis and critical care: Patricia Kritek, MD, EdM; 11:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- Not true love’s kiss? Updates in infectious disease: John Sanders, MD, MPHTM; 2:50-3:30 p.m.
- Updates in acute coronary syndrome: Jeff Trost, MD; 3:40-4:20 p.m.
- Waiting in line for ‘It’s a Small World’ and other things we do for no reason: Tony Breu, MD, FHM; 4:30-5:10 p.m.
- “The Mad Hatter”: Updates in delirium: Ethan Cumbler, MD, FHM; 5:20-6:00 p.m.
In addition to the sepsis update in the Repeated Sessions track, Dr. Smith noted that sepsis will also be the topic of a pre-course offering (April 8, 8:15 a.m.-4:50 p.m.). “The topic of sepsis remains a hot item in hospital medicine,” he said.
“I’d also like to highlight a new pre-course offering this year – ‘Keep your finger on the pulse: Cardiology update for the hospitalist’ (April 8, 8:30 a.m.-4:50 p.m.),” he said. “Many of our pre-course offerings are carry-overs from previous years due to ongoing great success with the individual pre-courses themselves. Although we have had a cardiology pre-course in our lineup of offerings in the past, we chose to offer a freshly redesigned pre-course in cardiology this year to round out the lineup of pre-course offerings and to keep things fresh.”
The “Stump the attentive (not absent-minded) professor” sessions on clinical unknowns in the Diagnostics Reasoning track are also must-sees, Dr. Smith said. So much so, that SHM is offering two of them this year (April 9, 2:00-2:40 p.m.; 3:45-4:25 p.m.).
Dr. Smith’s codirector Kathleen Finn, MD, MPhil, SFHM, also has a few personal favorites on the education program.
“I know the talks in the ‘Seasoning your career track’ will be great,” said Dr. Finn, a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “This new track provides mid-career hospitalists (and new hospitalists) ideas in how to continue to make their career enjoyable and stimulating. It includes talks on how to advance in a leadership position, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, prevent burnout or design your groups schedule so it doesn’t rule your life.”
The board weighs in
The 2018 HM18 line-up garnered an enthusiastic thumbs-up from The Hospitalist’s editorial advisory board. We polled these experts for their 2018 “must-see” sessions, and they responded with a selection that spans the meeting’s wide-ranging offerings.
1. Leadership essentials for success in hospital medicine (April 9, 10:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m.)
Amit Vashist, MD, MBA, FHM, system chair, hospitalist division, Mountain State Health Alliance, Virginia/Tennessee, is especially excited about this session, intended to help hospitalists assume leadership roles.
“Given the ever-expanding footprint of hospitalists inside the hospitals and beyond, and the way they are being called upon to be the drivers of an increasingly value-based care, I believe it is imperative for every hospitalist provider – regardless of being in a leadership role or not – to have a fundamental understanding of the leadership nuances pertaining specifically to hospital medicine in order to optimally leverage their skill set to drive transformational changes in the health care arena,” he said. “This primer on leadership essentials should pique the interest of the hospitalists further towards developing a deeper appreciation of some of the leadership dimensions must-haves in the realm of hospital medicine.”
Raj Sehgal, MD, FHM, clinical associate professor of medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, pegged communication and behavioral medicine as two top picks.
2. Do you have a minute to talk? Peer-to-peer feedback (April 9, 2:50-4:20 p.m.)
“Those of us in academic settings spend a lot of time thinking about giving feedback to – and receiving feedback from – students and residents, but some of the most valuable feedback we can get is from our coworkers,” he said. “Many hospitalist groups are actively working on ways for their providers to learn from each other, such as peer observations, and this session should help in guiding some of those programs.”
3. Through the looking glass: A psychiatrist’s tricks for inpatient acute behavioral emergencies (April 10, 2:50-3:50 p.m.)
“Even for a seasoned hospitalist who never breaks a sweat treating the most acutely medically ill patients, the acutely psychotic (or agitated, or suicidal) patient can provoke significant anxiety,” Dr. Sehgal said. “The opportunity to gain another couple of ‘tools’ to add to our kit for these patients should help alleviate that feeling.”
No need for an academic meeting to be boring, said Weijen Chang, MD, SFHM, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Baystate Children’s Hospital, Springfield, Mass.
4. Can we just stick to the “Bare Necessities”? – Things we do for no reason (April 9, 10:35-11:35 a.m.)
5. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”: Which articles are the fairest of them all? Top pediatric updates (April 10, 5:45-6:45 p.m.)
“I’d say Dr. Lenny Feldman’s [SFHM] ‘Things we do for no reason’ is a must-see. Lenny is a master at simplifying complex issues and communicating them in an easily understood manner, and he’s quite entertaining,” Dr. Chang said. “And of course, another must-see is Top Pediatric Updates. It is entertaining, educational, and we almost got thrown out last year for bringing beer!”
Sarah Stella, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at Denver Health, had a hard time choosing between the many interesting offerings. “There are quite a few great sessions this year that I’m interested in, but these are my top picks:”
6. Convert your everyday work into scholarship (and get it funded) (April 9, 1:35-2:35 p.m.)
“By virtue of their daily clinical and quality improvement/committee work, many hospitalists are well on their way to generating scholarship and funding, but are unsure how to make this conversion,” she said. “This workshop is a must for academic hospitalists working toward promotion who want a framework and tangible steps on how to get credit for what they are already doing.”
7. “Heigh ho, heigh ho,” it’s off to changing roles mid-career we go (April 11, 8:20-9:00 a.m.)
“Part of what attracts many of us to hospital medicine in the first place is the versatility of what we do and the ability to diversify based on our interests. I think this is a must-see for mid-career hospitalists like myself, or really any hospitalist dreaming of reinventing oneself.”
8. Winning hearts and minds at the bedside: Battling unconscious bias through cultural humility (April 11, 9:10-9:50 a.m.)
“Recognizing and confronting our implicit biases and how they affect patient-physician interactions is hard but incredibly important work,” Dr. Stella said. “I’ll definitely be attending this session by Aziz Ansari, DO, SFHM, to learn how to improve my relationship (and hence outcomes) with my patients.”
Harry (Hyung) Cho, MD, FHM, assistant professor of medicine and director of quality, safety, and value, division of hospital medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, had some diverse choices.
9. Being female in hospital medicine: Overcoming individual and institutional barriers in the workplace (April 9, 12:40-2:15 p.m.)
“This is a very timely, very important topic in the news and I think it will draw a lot of people,” he said.
10. Every patient tells a story and the art of diagnosis (April 9, 2:55-3:35 p.m.)
“The presenter is Dr. Lisa Sanders, who writes the ‘Diagnosis’ column for the New York Times and is a Yale University faculty member. She’s a great speaker and, incidentally, was a consultant on the TV show, ‘House, MD.’ ”
Raman Palabindala, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, thinks the most important session at HM18 is the annual update.
11. Update in hospital medicine (April 10, 1:40-2:40 p.m.)“Almost every year, this is the most high energy presentation, and I don’t think I ever missed this session, no matter who is the presenter is,” he said. “As physicians, I think we need this update every year, and this is the best single hour where we can learn a lot as a hospitalist related to hospital medicine. This is the most concentrated extract of the entire meeting. What I learned about the behind scenes efforts up to 50-100 hours of work – why not we take advantage of this session.”
Lonika Sood, MD, FHM of the department of hospital medicine, Aurora BayCare Medical Center, Green Bay, Wis., has a passion for both leadership and scholarship, and her choices reflect that interest.
12. How to write a winning abstract (April 11, 7:30-8:30 a.m.)
13. Leadership positions in medical education: How to break into the field (April 11, 11:40 a.m.-12:20 p.m.)
14. Serious illness communication: A skills-based workshop (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.)
“I would recommend all of those, especially for early-career hospitalists. And, having enjoyed and learned a lot from the workshops at HM17, I would highly recommend checking out a few that will help polish your communications – a much-needed skill in hospital medicine,” she said.
Finally, don’t just pick up another embroidered mouse ear hat on your way out. The best HM18 souvenir is taking back the knowledge you gained and – as Dr. Sood said – there’s a session for that.
15. How to bring the things you learn at SHM back to your institution: Advocating for high value care on hospital committees (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.).
For more information on the HM18 education sessions, check the latest version of the conference schedule at http://shmannualconference.org/conference-schedule.
Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018, the second-happiest place in Orlando – at least for hospitalists who want to be in the know.
The 2018 education program is a ride through the diverse world of hospital medicine, with sessions ranging from clinical updates to cutting-edge techniques, communication tools, building a satisfying career, and finding your way through tangles of red tape and policy.
Two tracks new for 2018 hone in on managing alternative providers and palliative care.
The half-day NP/PA track (beginning April 11 at 7:30 a.m.) recognizes these practitioners for their crucial roles in hospital medicine care delivery. Among the discussions aimed at hospitalists: Best practices in provider utilization and collaboration; supervision vs. collaboration; and challenging situations when working with mid-level providers.
The palliative care track (also a half day, starting April 11 at 10 a.m.) recognizes the crucial role hospitalists play in optimizing end-of-life care. Sessions will help hospitalists understand that role, and guide them in managing pain and other symptoms commonly encountered during this transitional time.
As for the rest of the meeting, picking favorites is as tough as picking between Disney’s Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain, said HM18 course director Dustin Smith, MD, SFHM, of Emory University, Atlanta. “We feel strongly that all offerings at the conference are ‘must-sees,’ and it’s why we offer repeat sessions of what we predict will be the most popular talks overall. Since there are so many good sessions competing for attendees at the same time, we wanted to make sure we offered these repeat sessions of common, high-yield clinical topics.”
The Repeated Sessions track is set for April 10, and runs a full day. The track includes these dynamic sessions:
- Updates in congestive heart failure: Pablo Quintero, MD; 11-11:40 a.m.
- He-who-shall-not-be-named: Updates in sepsis and critical care: Patricia Kritek, MD, EdM; 11:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- Not true love’s kiss? Updates in infectious disease: John Sanders, MD, MPHTM; 2:50-3:30 p.m.
- Updates in acute coronary syndrome: Jeff Trost, MD; 3:40-4:20 p.m.
- Waiting in line for ‘It’s a Small World’ and other things we do for no reason: Tony Breu, MD, FHM; 4:30-5:10 p.m.
- “The Mad Hatter”: Updates in delirium: Ethan Cumbler, MD, FHM; 5:20-6:00 p.m.
In addition to the sepsis update in the Repeated Sessions track, Dr. Smith noted that sepsis will also be the topic of a pre-course offering (April 8, 8:15 a.m.-4:50 p.m.). “The topic of sepsis remains a hot item in hospital medicine,” he said.
“I’d also like to highlight a new pre-course offering this year – ‘Keep your finger on the pulse: Cardiology update for the hospitalist’ (April 8, 8:30 a.m.-4:50 p.m.),” he said. “Many of our pre-course offerings are carry-overs from previous years due to ongoing great success with the individual pre-courses themselves. Although we have had a cardiology pre-course in our lineup of offerings in the past, we chose to offer a freshly redesigned pre-course in cardiology this year to round out the lineup of pre-course offerings and to keep things fresh.”
The “Stump the attentive (not absent-minded) professor” sessions on clinical unknowns in the Diagnostics Reasoning track are also must-sees, Dr. Smith said. So much so, that SHM is offering two of them this year (April 9, 2:00-2:40 p.m.; 3:45-4:25 p.m.).
Dr. Smith’s codirector Kathleen Finn, MD, MPhil, SFHM, also has a few personal favorites on the education program.
“I know the talks in the ‘Seasoning your career track’ will be great,” said Dr. Finn, a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “This new track provides mid-career hospitalists (and new hospitalists) ideas in how to continue to make their career enjoyable and stimulating. It includes talks on how to advance in a leadership position, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, prevent burnout or design your groups schedule so it doesn’t rule your life.”
The board weighs in
The 2018 HM18 line-up garnered an enthusiastic thumbs-up from The Hospitalist’s editorial advisory board. We polled these experts for their 2018 “must-see” sessions, and they responded with a selection that spans the meeting’s wide-ranging offerings.
1. Leadership essentials for success in hospital medicine (April 9, 10:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m.)
Amit Vashist, MD, MBA, FHM, system chair, hospitalist division, Mountain State Health Alliance, Virginia/Tennessee, is especially excited about this session, intended to help hospitalists assume leadership roles.
“Given the ever-expanding footprint of hospitalists inside the hospitals and beyond, and the way they are being called upon to be the drivers of an increasingly value-based care, I believe it is imperative for every hospitalist provider – regardless of being in a leadership role or not – to have a fundamental understanding of the leadership nuances pertaining specifically to hospital medicine in order to optimally leverage their skill set to drive transformational changes in the health care arena,” he said. “This primer on leadership essentials should pique the interest of the hospitalists further towards developing a deeper appreciation of some of the leadership dimensions must-haves in the realm of hospital medicine.”
Raj Sehgal, MD, FHM, clinical associate professor of medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, pegged communication and behavioral medicine as two top picks.
2. Do you have a minute to talk? Peer-to-peer feedback (April 9, 2:50-4:20 p.m.)
“Those of us in academic settings spend a lot of time thinking about giving feedback to – and receiving feedback from – students and residents, but some of the most valuable feedback we can get is from our coworkers,” he said. “Many hospitalist groups are actively working on ways for their providers to learn from each other, such as peer observations, and this session should help in guiding some of those programs.”
3. Through the looking glass: A psychiatrist’s tricks for inpatient acute behavioral emergencies (April 10, 2:50-3:50 p.m.)
“Even for a seasoned hospitalist who never breaks a sweat treating the most acutely medically ill patients, the acutely psychotic (or agitated, or suicidal) patient can provoke significant anxiety,” Dr. Sehgal said. “The opportunity to gain another couple of ‘tools’ to add to our kit for these patients should help alleviate that feeling.”
No need for an academic meeting to be boring, said Weijen Chang, MD, SFHM, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Baystate Children’s Hospital, Springfield, Mass.
4. Can we just stick to the “Bare Necessities”? – Things we do for no reason (April 9, 10:35-11:35 a.m.)
5. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”: Which articles are the fairest of them all? Top pediatric updates (April 10, 5:45-6:45 p.m.)
“I’d say Dr. Lenny Feldman’s [SFHM] ‘Things we do for no reason’ is a must-see. Lenny is a master at simplifying complex issues and communicating them in an easily understood manner, and he’s quite entertaining,” Dr. Chang said. “And of course, another must-see is Top Pediatric Updates. It is entertaining, educational, and we almost got thrown out last year for bringing beer!”
Sarah Stella, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at Denver Health, had a hard time choosing between the many interesting offerings. “There are quite a few great sessions this year that I’m interested in, but these are my top picks:”
6. Convert your everyday work into scholarship (and get it funded) (April 9, 1:35-2:35 p.m.)
“By virtue of their daily clinical and quality improvement/committee work, many hospitalists are well on their way to generating scholarship and funding, but are unsure how to make this conversion,” she said. “This workshop is a must for academic hospitalists working toward promotion who want a framework and tangible steps on how to get credit for what they are already doing.”
7. “Heigh ho, heigh ho,” it’s off to changing roles mid-career we go (April 11, 8:20-9:00 a.m.)
“Part of what attracts many of us to hospital medicine in the first place is the versatility of what we do and the ability to diversify based on our interests. I think this is a must-see for mid-career hospitalists like myself, or really any hospitalist dreaming of reinventing oneself.”
8. Winning hearts and minds at the bedside: Battling unconscious bias through cultural humility (April 11, 9:10-9:50 a.m.)
“Recognizing and confronting our implicit biases and how they affect patient-physician interactions is hard but incredibly important work,” Dr. Stella said. “I’ll definitely be attending this session by Aziz Ansari, DO, SFHM, to learn how to improve my relationship (and hence outcomes) with my patients.”
Harry (Hyung) Cho, MD, FHM, assistant professor of medicine and director of quality, safety, and value, division of hospital medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, had some diverse choices.
9. Being female in hospital medicine: Overcoming individual and institutional barriers in the workplace (April 9, 12:40-2:15 p.m.)
“This is a very timely, very important topic in the news and I think it will draw a lot of people,” he said.
10. Every patient tells a story and the art of diagnosis (April 9, 2:55-3:35 p.m.)
“The presenter is Dr. Lisa Sanders, who writes the ‘Diagnosis’ column for the New York Times and is a Yale University faculty member. She’s a great speaker and, incidentally, was a consultant on the TV show, ‘House, MD.’ ”
Raman Palabindala, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, thinks the most important session at HM18 is the annual update.
11. Update in hospital medicine (April 10, 1:40-2:40 p.m.)“Almost every year, this is the most high energy presentation, and I don’t think I ever missed this session, no matter who is the presenter is,” he said. “As physicians, I think we need this update every year, and this is the best single hour where we can learn a lot as a hospitalist related to hospital medicine. This is the most concentrated extract of the entire meeting. What I learned about the behind scenes efforts up to 50-100 hours of work – why not we take advantage of this session.”
Lonika Sood, MD, FHM of the department of hospital medicine, Aurora BayCare Medical Center, Green Bay, Wis., has a passion for both leadership and scholarship, and her choices reflect that interest.
12. How to write a winning abstract (April 11, 7:30-8:30 a.m.)
13. Leadership positions in medical education: How to break into the field (April 11, 11:40 a.m.-12:20 p.m.)
14. Serious illness communication: A skills-based workshop (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.)
“I would recommend all of those, especially for early-career hospitalists. And, having enjoyed and learned a lot from the workshops at HM17, I would highly recommend checking out a few that will help polish your communications – a much-needed skill in hospital medicine,” she said.
Finally, don’t just pick up another embroidered mouse ear hat on your way out. The best HM18 souvenir is taking back the knowledge you gained and – as Dr. Sood said – there’s a session for that.
15. How to bring the things you learn at SHM back to your institution: Advocating for high value care on hospital committees (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.).
For more information on the HM18 education sessions, check the latest version of the conference schedule at http://shmannualconference.org/conference-schedule.
Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018, the second-happiest place in Orlando – at least for hospitalists who want to be in the know.
The 2018 education program is a ride through the diverse world of hospital medicine, with sessions ranging from clinical updates to cutting-edge techniques, communication tools, building a satisfying career, and finding your way through tangles of red tape and policy.
Two tracks new for 2018 hone in on managing alternative providers and palliative care.
The half-day NP/PA track (beginning April 11 at 7:30 a.m.) recognizes these practitioners for their crucial roles in hospital medicine care delivery. Among the discussions aimed at hospitalists: Best practices in provider utilization and collaboration; supervision vs. collaboration; and challenging situations when working with mid-level providers.
The palliative care track (also a half day, starting April 11 at 10 a.m.) recognizes the crucial role hospitalists play in optimizing end-of-life care. Sessions will help hospitalists understand that role, and guide them in managing pain and other symptoms commonly encountered during this transitional time.
As for the rest of the meeting, picking favorites is as tough as picking between Disney’s Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain, said HM18 course director Dustin Smith, MD, SFHM, of Emory University, Atlanta. “We feel strongly that all offerings at the conference are ‘must-sees,’ and it’s why we offer repeat sessions of what we predict will be the most popular talks overall. Since there are so many good sessions competing for attendees at the same time, we wanted to make sure we offered these repeat sessions of common, high-yield clinical topics.”
The Repeated Sessions track is set for April 10, and runs a full day. The track includes these dynamic sessions:
- Updates in congestive heart failure: Pablo Quintero, MD; 11-11:40 a.m.
- He-who-shall-not-be-named: Updates in sepsis and critical care: Patricia Kritek, MD, EdM; 11:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
- Not true love’s kiss? Updates in infectious disease: John Sanders, MD, MPHTM; 2:50-3:30 p.m.
- Updates in acute coronary syndrome: Jeff Trost, MD; 3:40-4:20 p.m.
- Waiting in line for ‘It’s a Small World’ and other things we do for no reason: Tony Breu, MD, FHM; 4:30-5:10 p.m.
- “The Mad Hatter”: Updates in delirium: Ethan Cumbler, MD, FHM; 5:20-6:00 p.m.
In addition to the sepsis update in the Repeated Sessions track, Dr. Smith noted that sepsis will also be the topic of a pre-course offering (April 8, 8:15 a.m.-4:50 p.m.). “The topic of sepsis remains a hot item in hospital medicine,” he said.
“I’d also like to highlight a new pre-course offering this year – ‘Keep your finger on the pulse: Cardiology update for the hospitalist’ (April 8, 8:30 a.m.-4:50 p.m.),” he said. “Many of our pre-course offerings are carry-overs from previous years due to ongoing great success with the individual pre-courses themselves. Although we have had a cardiology pre-course in our lineup of offerings in the past, we chose to offer a freshly redesigned pre-course in cardiology this year to round out the lineup of pre-course offerings and to keep things fresh.”
The “Stump the attentive (not absent-minded) professor” sessions on clinical unknowns in the Diagnostics Reasoning track are also must-sees, Dr. Smith said. So much so, that SHM is offering two of them this year (April 9, 2:00-2:40 p.m.; 3:45-4:25 p.m.).
Dr. Smith’s codirector Kathleen Finn, MD, MPhil, SFHM, also has a few personal favorites on the education program.
“I know the talks in the ‘Seasoning your career track’ will be great,” said Dr. Finn, a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “This new track provides mid-career hospitalists (and new hospitalists) ideas in how to continue to make their career enjoyable and stimulating. It includes talks on how to advance in a leadership position, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, prevent burnout or design your groups schedule so it doesn’t rule your life.”
The board weighs in
The 2018 HM18 line-up garnered an enthusiastic thumbs-up from The Hospitalist’s editorial advisory board. We polled these experts for their 2018 “must-see” sessions, and they responded with a selection that spans the meeting’s wide-ranging offerings.
1. Leadership essentials for success in hospital medicine (April 9, 10:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m.)
Amit Vashist, MD, MBA, FHM, system chair, hospitalist division, Mountain State Health Alliance, Virginia/Tennessee, is especially excited about this session, intended to help hospitalists assume leadership roles.
“Given the ever-expanding footprint of hospitalists inside the hospitals and beyond, and the way they are being called upon to be the drivers of an increasingly value-based care, I believe it is imperative for every hospitalist provider – regardless of being in a leadership role or not – to have a fundamental understanding of the leadership nuances pertaining specifically to hospital medicine in order to optimally leverage their skill set to drive transformational changes in the health care arena,” he said. “This primer on leadership essentials should pique the interest of the hospitalists further towards developing a deeper appreciation of some of the leadership dimensions must-haves in the realm of hospital medicine.”
Raj Sehgal, MD, FHM, clinical associate professor of medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, pegged communication and behavioral medicine as two top picks.
2. Do you have a minute to talk? Peer-to-peer feedback (April 9, 2:50-4:20 p.m.)
“Those of us in academic settings spend a lot of time thinking about giving feedback to – and receiving feedback from – students and residents, but some of the most valuable feedback we can get is from our coworkers,” he said. “Many hospitalist groups are actively working on ways for their providers to learn from each other, such as peer observations, and this session should help in guiding some of those programs.”
3. Through the looking glass: A psychiatrist’s tricks for inpatient acute behavioral emergencies (April 10, 2:50-3:50 p.m.)
“Even for a seasoned hospitalist who never breaks a sweat treating the most acutely medically ill patients, the acutely psychotic (or agitated, or suicidal) patient can provoke significant anxiety,” Dr. Sehgal said. “The opportunity to gain another couple of ‘tools’ to add to our kit for these patients should help alleviate that feeling.”
No need for an academic meeting to be boring, said Weijen Chang, MD, SFHM, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Baystate Children’s Hospital, Springfield, Mass.
4. Can we just stick to the “Bare Necessities”? – Things we do for no reason (April 9, 10:35-11:35 a.m.)
5. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”: Which articles are the fairest of them all? Top pediatric updates (April 10, 5:45-6:45 p.m.)
“I’d say Dr. Lenny Feldman’s [SFHM] ‘Things we do for no reason’ is a must-see. Lenny is a master at simplifying complex issues and communicating them in an easily understood manner, and he’s quite entertaining,” Dr. Chang said. “And of course, another must-see is Top Pediatric Updates. It is entertaining, educational, and we almost got thrown out last year for bringing beer!”
Sarah Stella, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at Denver Health, had a hard time choosing between the many interesting offerings. “There are quite a few great sessions this year that I’m interested in, but these are my top picks:”
6. Convert your everyday work into scholarship (and get it funded) (April 9, 1:35-2:35 p.m.)
“By virtue of their daily clinical and quality improvement/committee work, many hospitalists are well on their way to generating scholarship and funding, but are unsure how to make this conversion,” she said. “This workshop is a must for academic hospitalists working toward promotion who want a framework and tangible steps on how to get credit for what they are already doing.”
7. “Heigh ho, heigh ho,” it’s off to changing roles mid-career we go (April 11, 8:20-9:00 a.m.)
“Part of what attracts many of us to hospital medicine in the first place is the versatility of what we do and the ability to diversify based on our interests. I think this is a must-see for mid-career hospitalists like myself, or really any hospitalist dreaming of reinventing oneself.”
8. Winning hearts and minds at the bedside: Battling unconscious bias through cultural humility (April 11, 9:10-9:50 a.m.)
“Recognizing and confronting our implicit biases and how they affect patient-physician interactions is hard but incredibly important work,” Dr. Stella said. “I’ll definitely be attending this session by Aziz Ansari, DO, SFHM, to learn how to improve my relationship (and hence outcomes) with my patients.”
Harry (Hyung) Cho, MD, FHM, assistant professor of medicine and director of quality, safety, and value, division of hospital medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, had some diverse choices.
9. Being female in hospital medicine: Overcoming individual and institutional barriers in the workplace (April 9, 12:40-2:15 p.m.)
“This is a very timely, very important topic in the news and I think it will draw a lot of people,” he said.
10. Every patient tells a story and the art of diagnosis (April 9, 2:55-3:35 p.m.)
“The presenter is Dr. Lisa Sanders, who writes the ‘Diagnosis’ column for the New York Times and is a Yale University faculty member. She’s a great speaker and, incidentally, was a consultant on the TV show, ‘House, MD.’ ”
Raman Palabindala, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, thinks the most important session at HM18 is the annual update.
11. Update in hospital medicine (April 10, 1:40-2:40 p.m.)“Almost every year, this is the most high energy presentation, and I don’t think I ever missed this session, no matter who is the presenter is,” he said. “As physicians, I think we need this update every year, and this is the best single hour where we can learn a lot as a hospitalist related to hospital medicine. This is the most concentrated extract of the entire meeting. What I learned about the behind scenes efforts up to 50-100 hours of work – why not we take advantage of this session.”
Lonika Sood, MD, FHM of the department of hospital medicine, Aurora BayCare Medical Center, Green Bay, Wis., has a passion for both leadership and scholarship, and her choices reflect that interest.
12. How to write a winning abstract (April 11, 7:30-8:30 a.m.)
13. Leadership positions in medical education: How to break into the field (April 11, 11:40 a.m.-12:20 p.m.)
14. Serious illness communication: A skills-based workshop (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.)
“I would recommend all of those, especially for early-career hospitalists. And, having enjoyed and learned a lot from the workshops at HM17, I would highly recommend checking out a few that will help polish your communications – a much-needed skill in hospital medicine,” she said.
Finally, don’t just pick up another embroidered mouse ear hat on your way out. The best HM18 souvenir is taking back the knowledge you gained and – as Dr. Sood said – there’s a session for that.
15. How to bring the things you learn at SHM back to your institution: Advocating for high value care on hospital committees (April 11, 8:00-9:30 a.m.).
For more information on the HM18 education sessions, check the latest version of the conference schedule at http://shmannualconference.org/conference-schedule.
Special interest groups drive SHM engagement
As a professional society supporting an increasingly diverse membership base, SHM is perpetually challenged to create an environment that offers relevance and community to all. While the broad hospital medicine population and SHM are focused on the same goals – optimizing patient care and the system that delivers it – there are nuances within membership that require specific networks and platforms to build this environment of community.
SHM relies on both staff and volunteers to be an engine for leadership, innovation, and labor. Its volunteer corps is essential to delivering value to members and setting the strategic agenda for hospital medicine’s future. Over the last year, SHM has attempted to expand the infrastructure and opportunity for volunteer leadership by examining new approaches to allow pockets of membership to have their own voice. During the year to come, members will continue to help staff forge a new landscape for constituency engagement.
If you are a current volunteer leader, were interested in pursuing volunteer opportunities this past fall, or have simply been navigating SHM’s new website, you may be aware that the Committee structure has changed. There is also new publicity for things called “Special Interest Groups.” Many of our constituency-based Committees are in the process of transforming into Special Interest Groups, which will be officially launched during SHM’s Annual Conference in Orlando in April. They are adopting a more visible charge to create the most accessible and influence-able environment for the entire SHM community.
Committee-to-Special Interest Group transition is about both philosophy and mechanics. It aims to ensure that each constituency group can be readily shaped by the entire population it represents, and will work to create the infrastructure to facilitate that. SHM envisions Special Interest Groups being primary influencers over future content-development and policy objectives; their online communities serving as the principal means for socialization and dialogue around proposed ideas and initiatives. To that end, SHM invested in an entirely new platform for Hospital Medicine Exchange (HMX). If you have yet to explore the new HMX and opportunities for niche networking, visit www.hmxchange.org.
We have also developed a new governance model to encourage interactions between volunteer groups. While there is overlap within Committee and Special Interest Group constructs and likely many volunteers serving in both spheres, it is important to create parallel environments with discreet charges around function and membership engagement. As we continue to roll out the changes, we will rely on volunteers and members at large to help us best realize our intent.
During this transformation, existing volunteers are working with staff to determine the future. There will be some differences in the way Committees and Special Interest Groups function. The differences will be deliberate and designed to provide for fluid and thoughtful administration of business and membership engagement. There will also be consistent communication between Special Interest Groups and strategic and functional Committees with ongoing charges and oversight of existing SHM programs.
Special Interest Groups will have dedicated staff liaisons and volunteer leadership councils. Transforming Committees’ current volunteers will serve as inaugural council leaders with the process for future election being developed in concert by staff and volunteers over the next several months. Special Interest Group membership is open and free to all active SHM members. All current Special Interest Groups will facilitate live Special Interest Forums during SHM’s Annual Conference. If you attend Hospital Medicine 2018 in April, stop by these Special Interest Group Forums on the following topics to learn more:
• Advocacy and Public Policy
• Care for Vulnerable Populations
• Critical Care Medicine
• Health care Information Technology
• Hospitalists Trained in Family Medicine
• Med-Peds Hospitalists
• Multi-Site Hospital Leaders
• Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
• Palliative Care
• Pediatric Hospitalists
• Perioperative Medicine
• Point of Care Ultrasound
• Practice Administrators/Practice Management
• Quality Improvement
• Medical Students and Residents
• Rural Hospitalists
Summaries of the live forums will be posted on corresponding HMX communities after the conference, complete with open comment periods for discussion. There will be an open application period during summer 2018 for new Special Interest Groups not defined above. The SHM Board will review applications in September 2018, and newly established groups will be convened in October to begin building HMX communities, confirming volunteer leader councils, and charting their course with a dedicated staff liaison.
The intent is simple – to provide an open-access mechanism for membership at large to collaborate amongst themselves, offer perspective, and validate or challenge SHM’s proposed initiatives and direction. Special Interest Groups and Committees alike are – and will be – an essential part of SHM’s future – as developers of content, voices of the populations we serve, and an apparatus for the implementation of our shared mission and vision.
SHM exists to serve its members and help them deliver exceptional patient care. We are always interested in your perspective and feedback. To offer your thoughts and ideas about Special Interest Groups or anything else related to membership, please email membership@hospitalmedicine.org.
Mr. Gray is vice president of membership at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
As a professional society supporting an increasingly diverse membership base, SHM is perpetually challenged to create an environment that offers relevance and community to all. While the broad hospital medicine population and SHM are focused on the same goals – optimizing patient care and the system that delivers it – there are nuances within membership that require specific networks and platforms to build this environment of community.
SHM relies on both staff and volunteers to be an engine for leadership, innovation, and labor. Its volunteer corps is essential to delivering value to members and setting the strategic agenda for hospital medicine’s future. Over the last year, SHM has attempted to expand the infrastructure and opportunity for volunteer leadership by examining new approaches to allow pockets of membership to have their own voice. During the year to come, members will continue to help staff forge a new landscape for constituency engagement.
If you are a current volunteer leader, were interested in pursuing volunteer opportunities this past fall, or have simply been navigating SHM’s new website, you may be aware that the Committee structure has changed. There is also new publicity for things called “Special Interest Groups.” Many of our constituency-based Committees are in the process of transforming into Special Interest Groups, which will be officially launched during SHM’s Annual Conference in Orlando in April. They are adopting a more visible charge to create the most accessible and influence-able environment for the entire SHM community.
Committee-to-Special Interest Group transition is about both philosophy and mechanics. It aims to ensure that each constituency group can be readily shaped by the entire population it represents, and will work to create the infrastructure to facilitate that. SHM envisions Special Interest Groups being primary influencers over future content-development and policy objectives; their online communities serving as the principal means for socialization and dialogue around proposed ideas and initiatives. To that end, SHM invested in an entirely new platform for Hospital Medicine Exchange (HMX). If you have yet to explore the new HMX and opportunities for niche networking, visit www.hmxchange.org.
We have also developed a new governance model to encourage interactions between volunteer groups. While there is overlap within Committee and Special Interest Group constructs and likely many volunteers serving in both spheres, it is important to create parallel environments with discreet charges around function and membership engagement. As we continue to roll out the changes, we will rely on volunteers and members at large to help us best realize our intent.
During this transformation, existing volunteers are working with staff to determine the future. There will be some differences in the way Committees and Special Interest Groups function. The differences will be deliberate and designed to provide for fluid and thoughtful administration of business and membership engagement. There will also be consistent communication between Special Interest Groups and strategic and functional Committees with ongoing charges and oversight of existing SHM programs.
Special Interest Groups will have dedicated staff liaisons and volunteer leadership councils. Transforming Committees’ current volunteers will serve as inaugural council leaders with the process for future election being developed in concert by staff and volunteers over the next several months. Special Interest Group membership is open and free to all active SHM members. All current Special Interest Groups will facilitate live Special Interest Forums during SHM’s Annual Conference. If you attend Hospital Medicine 2018 in April, stop by these Special Interest Group Forums on the following topics to learn more:
• Advocacy and Public Policy
• Care for Vulnerable Populations
• Critical Care Medicine
• Health care Information Technology
• Hospitalists Trained in Family Medicine
• Med-Peds Hospitalists
• Multi-Site Hospital Leaders
• Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
• Palliative Care
• Pediatric Hospitalists
• Perioperative Medicine
• Point of Care Ultrasound
• Practice Administrators/Practice Management
• Quality Improvement
• Medical Students and Residents
• Rural Hospitalists
Summaries of the live forums will be posted on corresponding HMX communities after the conference, complete with open comment periods for discussion. There will be an open application period during summer 2018 for new Special Interest Groups not defined above. The SHM Board will review applications in September 2018, and newly established groups will be convened in October to begin building HMX communities, confirming volunteer leader councils, and charting their course with a dedicated staff liaison.
The intent is simple – to provide an open-access mechanism for membership at large to collaborate amongst themselves, offer perspective, and validate or challenge SHM’s proposed initiatives and direction. Special Interest Groups and Committees alike are – and will be – an essential part of SHM’s future – as developers of content, voices of the populations we serve, and an apparatus for the implementation of our shared mission and vision.
SHM exists to serve its members and help them deliver exceptional patient care. We are always interested in your perspective and feedback. To offer your thoughts and ideas about Special Interest Groups or anything else related to membership, please email membership@hospitalmedicine.org.
Mr. Gray is vice president of membership at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
As a professional society supporting an increasingly diverse membership base, SHM is perpetually challenged to create an environment that offers relevance and community to all. While the broad hospital medicine population and SHM are focused on the same goals – optimizing patient care and the system that delivers it – there are nuances within membership that require specific networks and platforms to build this environment of community.
SHM relies on both staff and volunteers to be an engine for leadership, innovation, and labor. Its volunteer corps is essential to delivering value to members and setting the strategic agenda for hospital medicine’s future. Over the last year, SHM has attempted to expand the infrastructure and opportunity for volunteer leadership by examining new approaches to allow pockets of membership to have their own voice. During the year to come, members will continue to help staff forge a new landscape for constituency engagement.
If you are a current volunteer leader, were interested in pursuing volunteer opportunities this past fall, or have simply been navigating SHM’s new website, you may be aware that the Committee structure has changed. There is also new publicity for things called “Special Interest Groups.” Many of our constituency-based Committees are in the process of transforming into Special Interest Groups, which will be officially launched during SHM’s Annual Conference in Orlando in April. They are adopting a more visible charge to create the most accessible and influence-able environment for the entire SHM community.
Committee-to-Special Interest Group transition is about both philosophy and mechanics. It aims to ensure that each constituency group can be readily shaped by the entire population it represents, and will work to create the infrastructure to facilitate that. SHM envisions Special Interest Groups being primary influencers over future content-development and policy objectives; their online communities serving as the principal means for socialization and dialogue around proposed ideas and initiatives. To that end, SHM invested in an entirely new platform for Hospital Medicine Exchange (HMX). If you have yet to explore the new HMX and opportunities for niche networking, visit www.hmxchange.org.
We have also developed a new governance model to encourage interactions between volunteer groups. While there is overlap within Committee and Special Interest Group constructs and likely many volunteers serving in both spheres, it is important to create parallel environments with discreet charges around function and membership engagement. As we continue to roll out the changes, we will rely on volunteers and members at large to help us best realize our intent.
During this transformation, existing volunteers are working with staff to determine the future. There will be some differences in the way Committees and Special Interest Groups function. The differences will be deliberate and designed to provide for fluid and thoughtful administration of business and membership engagement. There will also be consistent communication between Special Interest Groups and strategic and functional Committees with ongoing charges and oversight of existing SHM programs.
Special Interest Groups will have dedicated staff liaisons and volunteer leadership councils. Transforming Committees’ current volunteers will serve as inaugural council leaders with the process for future election being developed in concert by staff and volunteers over the next several months. Special Interest Group membership is open and free to all active SHM members. All current Special Interest Groups will facilitate live Special Interest Forums during SHM’s Annual Conference. If you attend Hospital Medicine 2018 in April, stop by these Special Interest Group Forums on the following topics to learn more:
• Advocacy and Public Policy
• Care for Vulnerable Populations
• Critical Care Medicine
• Health care Information Technology
• Hospitalists Trained in Family Medicine
• Med-Peds Hospitalists
• Multi-Site Hospital Leaders
• Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
• Palliative Care
• Pediatric Hospitalists
• Perioperative Medicine
• Point of Care Ultrasound
• Practice Administrators/Practice Management
• Quality Improvement
• Medical Students and Residents
• Rural Hospitalists
Summaries of the live forums will be posted on corresponding HMX communities after the conference, complete with open comment periods for discussion. There will be an open application period during summer 2018 for new Special Interest Groups not defined above. The SHM Board will review applications in September 2018, and newly established groups will be convened in October to begin building HMX communities, confirming volunteer leader councils, and charting their course with a dedicated staff liaison.
The intent is simple – to provide an open-access mechanism for membership at large to collaborate amongst themselves, offer perspective, and validate or challenge SHM’s proposed initiatives and direction. Special Interest Groups and Committees alike are – and will be – an essential part of SHM’s future – as developers of content, voices of the populations we serve, and an apparatus for the implementation of our shared mission and vision.
SHM exists to serve its members and help them deliver exceptional patient care. We are always interested in your perspective and feedback. To offer your thoughts and ideas about Special Interest Groups or anything else related to membership, please email membership@hospitalmedicine.org.
Mr. Gray is vice president of membership at the Society of Hospital Medicine.
SHM launches 2018 State of Hospital Medicine Survey
The Society of Hospital Medicine recently opened the 2018 State of Hospital Medicine (SoHM) Survey and is now seeking participants from hospital medicine groups to contribute to the collective understanding of the state of the specialty.
Results from the biennial survey will be analyzed and compiled into the 2018 SoHM Report to provide current data on hospitalist compensation and production, as well as cutting-edge knowledge covering practice demographics, staffing levels, turnover, staff growth, and financial support. The SoHM Survey closes on Feb. 16, 2018.
“The SoHM Survey lays the foundation for the creation of one of the most expansive tools for hospital medicine professionals,” said Beth Hawley, MBA, FACHE, chief operating officer of SHM. “With the help of participants from hospital medicine groups nationwide, it creates an up-to-date snapshot of trends in the specialty to help inform staffing and management decisions.”
The 2018 SoHM Survey includes new questions about open hospitalist physician positions during the year, including what percentage of approved staffing was unfilled and how the group filled the coverage. Other new topics ask about the number of work Relative Value Units generated by participating hospital medicine groups and who selects the billing codes for the groups.
Over the past year and a half, five distinct efforts were completed to collect user feedback for both the survey and report development processes. Efforts ranged from in-person focus groups at SHM’s Annual Conference to online user surveys. After information was collected and summarized, SHM’s Practice Analysis Committee ranked every question to trim down the Survey from 70 questions in 2016 to 52 questions in 2018.
The 2018 SoHM Report will be available this fall in print only, as a bundle of print and digital, or as digital only, with special discounts available for SHM members.
Committee members are available for one-on-one guidance as participants complete the Survey. For more information and to participate, visit www.hospitalmedicine.org/sohm.
The Society of Hospital Medicine recently opened the 2018 State of Hospital Medicine (SoHM) Survey and is now seeking participants from hospital medicine groups to contribute to the collective understanding of the state of the specialty.
Results from the biennial survey will be analyzed and compiled into the 2018 SoHM Report to provide current data on hospitalist compensation and production, as well as cutting-edge knowledge covering practice demographics, staffing levels, turnover, staff growth, and financial support. The SoHM Survey closes on Feb. 16, 2018.
“The SoHM Survey lays the foundation for the creation of one of the most expansive tools for hospital medicine professionals,” said Beth Hawley, MBA, FACHE, chief operating officer of SHM. “With the help of participants from hospital medicine groups nationwide, it creates an up-to-date snapshot of trends in the specialty to help inform staffing and management decisions.”
The 2018 SoHM Survey includes new questions about open hospitalist physician positions during the year, including what percentage of approved staffing was unfilled and how the group filled the coverage. Other new topics ask about the number of work Relative Value Units generated by participating hospital medicine groups and who selects the billing codes for the groups.
Over the past year and a half, five distinct efforts were completed to collect user feedback for both the survey and report development processes. Efforts ranged from in-person focus groups at SHM’s Annual Conference to online user surveys. After information was collected and summarized, SHM’s Practice Analysis Committee ranked every question to trim down the Survey from 70 questions in 2016 to 52 questions in 2018.
The 2018 SoHM Report will be available this fall in print only, as a bundle of print and digital, or as digital only, with special discounts available for SHM members.
Committee members are available for one-on-one guidance as participants complete the Survey. For more information and to participate, visit www.hospitalmedicine.org/sohm.
The Society of Hospital Medicine recently opened the 2018 State of Hospital Medicine (SoHM) Survey and is now seeking participants from hospital medicine groups to contribute to the collective understanding of the state of the specialty.
Results from the biennial survey will be analyzed and compiled into the 2018 SoHM Report to provide current data on hospitalist compensation and production, as well as cutting-edge knowledge covering practice demographics, staffing levels, turnover, staff growth, and financial support. The SoHM Survey closes on Feb. 16, 2018.
“The SoHM Survey lays the foundation for the creation of one of the most expansive tools for hospital medicine professionals,” said Beth Hawley, MBA, FACHE, chief operating officer of SHM. “With the help of participants from hospital medicine groups nationwide, it creates an up-to-date snapshot of trends in the specialty to help inform staffing and management decisions.”
The 2018 SoHM Survey includes new questions about open hospitalist physician positions during the year, including what percentage of approved staffing was unfilled and how the group filled the coverage. Other new topics ask about the number of work Relative Value Units generated by participating hospital medicine groups and who selects the billing codes for the groups.
Over the past year and a half, five distinct efforts were completed to collect user feedback for both the survey and report development processes. Efforts ranged from in-person focus groups at SHM’s Annual Conference to online user surveys. After information was collected and summarized, SHM’s Practice Analysis Committee ranked every question to trim down the Survey from 70 questions in 2016 to 52 questions in 2018.
The 2018 SoHM Report will be available this fall in print only, as a bundle of print and digital, or as digital only, with special discounts available for SHM members.
Committee members are available for one-on-one guidance as participants complete the Survey. For more information and to participate, visit www.hospitalmedicine.org/sohm.
A love of teaching: James Kim, MD
While James Kim, MD, did not originally begin medical school with a plan to become a hospitalist, he has embraced his current role wholeheartedly.
Since becoming board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases, Dr. Kim has welcomed the opportunity to be part of hospital medicine, which gives him the opportunity to pursue his other passion: teaching and mentoring.
“It’s not just what you know but how you convey what you know to other people,” said Dr. Kim. “While you might get useful information from a didactic teaching style, it’s important to ask questions to encourage the learner to think about not only what the right answer is but also what’s the thought process required to get the answer.”
As one of the newest additions to the editorial advisory board of The Hospitalist, Dr. Kim took time to tell us more about himself in a recent interview.
QUESTION: How did you find your career path in medicine?
ANSWER: I originally went into medical school thinking I was going to do pediatrics, but then I realized that I really enjoy talking to people and that I like the process of thinking through diagnoses, managing patients, and learning about what makes their circumstances unique.
Q: How did you get into hospital medicine?
A: When I finished my internal medicine residency, I thought I was going to do medical missions. However, I realized along the way that the care you need to provide in order to really make a difference in other countries requires a constant presence there – not just a week or two. So after my fellowship, I was searching for jobs and found a hospitalist position at the University of California, Los Angeles. When I saw it, I thought ‘Wow, I really miss doing inpatient medicine.’
Q: Since you started, what have been some of your favorite parts of hospital medicine?
A: When people come to you in the hospital setting, they are usually pretty sick. It is very satisfying when, through the course of a person’s hospital stay, we are able to come up with a plan that can get them acutely better.
Q: What do you think is the hardest part of hospital medicine?
A: I think one of the things that is most frustrating is when we are placed into a situation in which we are not necessarily doing medical work for a patient but are doing something more like social work. For instance, there are cases in which patients can not be on their own in the community, and there’s no family to take them in, so the hospital, on behalf of the state, has to take them in.
Q: What else do you do outside of hospitalist work?
A: Since I’ve finished medical school, I’ve always been in some kind of academia, which is not something I would have expected. But as time has gone by, I have really come to appreciate being in academia. I really enjoy teaching, and I also think that an academic institution kind of keeps me on my toes. I’m involved with interprofessional education at Emory, with teaching medical students, interns, and residents when I’m on teaching service, and obviously now I’m on The Hospitalist editorial board. I’m looking forward to keeping abreast of what’s hot in the world of hospital medicine.
Q: What are you excited about bringing to The Hospitalist editorial board?
A: I want to try to contribute ideas. I feel that even in my short time at Emory, I’ve gotten to know a few people who might be good resources for reporters to interview or even who might write articles themselves. I also think that seeing what is trending in the world of hospital medicine is a nice way of understanding the future direction of hospital medicine.
Q: What have you seen as being the biggest change in hospital medicine since you started?
A: I feel as though I’ve kept my head down and plowed forward through the first part of my career, but I think that, more than anything else, what I’ve noticed is bigger shifts within health care itself. I know that there’s a lot of consolidation going on. I think that there are many questions that are going to come up about how do we manage a health care system as complicated as America’s and how do we deliver optimal care to people especially when sometimes we end up in situations in which we don’t have all the resources that we would want to have because of circumstances.
Q: Do you see anything in particular on the horizon for hospital medicine?
A: I’ve noticed that there’s been more “hospitalist-ization” – if that’s even a term – of other medical services. At our institution, we already have an acute care service that is basically hospital medicine for general surgery. I think another thing that’s been kind of a hot topic recently is a point-of-care testing, including ultrasounds for line placements.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: I really enjoy my work at Emory. I want to find more opportunities to teach. For example, I’ve already gotten involved in teaching physician assistant students about how to perform interviews and deliver presentations for attendings. A lot of serendipitous things have happened to me over time, so I think I will continue to teach, but I’m open to those opportunities that present themselves in the future.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read recently and why?
A: “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell. This is a very well-known book – I think George Lucas made reference to it when he was writing Star Wars – but I think it was a great literary way to examine the hero’s journey. Once you read the book, and you then watch any kind of movie or read any other kind of adventure narrative, you can’t miss the pattern.
While James Kim, MD, did not originally begin medical school with a plan to become a hospitalist, he has embraced his current role wholeheartedly.
Since becoming board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases, Dr. Kim has welcomed the opportunity to be part of hospital medicine, which gives him the opportunity to pursue his other passion: teaching and mentoring.
“It’s not just what you know but how you convey what you know to other people,” said Dr. Kim. “While you might get useful information from a didactic teaching style, it’s important to ask questions to encourage the learner to think about not only what the right answer is but also what’s the thought process required to get the answer.”
As one of the newest additions to the editorial advisory board of The Hospitalist, Dr. Kim took time to tell us more about himself in a recent interview.
QUESTION: How did you find your career path in medicine?
ANSWER: I originally went into medical school thinking I was going to do pediatrics, but then I realized that I really enjoy talking to people and that I like the process of thinking through diagnoses, managing patients, and learning about what makes their circumstances unique.
Q: How did you get into hospital medicine?
A: When I finished my internal medicine residency, I thought I was going to do medical missions. However, I realized along the way that the care you need to provide in order to really make a difference in other countries requires a constant presence there – not just a week or two. So after my fellowship, I was searching for jobs and found a hospitalist position at the University of California, Los Angeles. When I saw it, I thought ‘Wow, I really miss doing inpatient medicine.’
Q: Since you started, what have been some of your favorite parts of hospital medicine?
A: When people come to you in the hospital setting, they are usually pretty sick. It is very satisfying when, through the course of a person’s hospital stay, we are able to come up with a plan that can get them acutely better.
Q: What do you think is the hardest part of hospital medicine?
A: I think one of the things that is most frustrating is when we are placed into a situation in which we are not necessarily doing medical work for a patient but are doing something more like social work. For instance, there are cases in which patients can not be on their own in the community, and there’s no family to take them in, so the hospital, on behalf of the state, has to take them in.
Q: What else do you do outside of hospitalist work?
A: Since I’ve finished medical school, I’ve always been in some kind of academia, which is not something I would have expected. But as time has gone by, I have really come to appreciate being in academia. I really enjoy teaching, and I also think that an academic institution kind of keeps me on my toes. I’m involved with interprofessional education at Emory, with teaching medical students, interns, and residents when I’m on teaching service, and obviously now I’m on The Hospitalist editorial board. I’m looking forward to keeping abreast of what’s hot in the world of hospital medicine.
Q: What are you excited about bringing to The Hospitalist editorial board?
A: I want to try to contribute ideas. I feel that even in my short time at Emory, I’ve gotten to know a few people who might be good resources for reporters to interview or even who might write articles themselves. I also think that seeing what is trending in the world of hospital medicine is a nice way of understanding the future direction of hospital medicine.
Q: What have you seen as being the biggest change in hospital medicine since you started?
A: I feel as though I’ve kept my head down and plowed forward through the first part of my career, but I think that, more than anything else, what I’ve noticed is bigger shifts within health care itself. I know that there’s a lot of consolidation going on. I think that there are many questions that are going to come up about how do we manage a health care system as complicated as America’s and how do we deliver optimal care to people especially when sometimes we end up in situations in which we don’t have all the resources that we would want to have because of circumstances.
Q: Do you see anything in particular on the horizon for hospital medicine?
A: I’ve noticed that there’s been more “hospitalist-ization” – if that’s even a term – of other medical services. At our institution, we already have an acute care service that is basically hospital medicine for general surgery. I think another thing that’s been kind of a hot topic recently is a point-of-care testing, including ultrasounds for line placements.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: I really enjoy my work at Emory. I want to find more opportunities to teach. For example, I’ve already gotten involved in teaching physician assistant students about how to perform interviews and deliver presentations for attendings. A lot of serendipitous things have happened to me over time, so I think I will continue to teach, but I’m open to those opportunities that present themselves in the future.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read recently and why?
A: “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell. This is a very well-known book – I think George Lucas made reference to it when he was writing Star Wars – but I think it was a great literary way to examine the hero’s journey. Once you read the book, and you then watch any kind of movie or read any other kind of adventure narrative, you can’t miss the pattern.
While James Kim, MD, did not originally begin medical school with a plan to become a hospitalist, he has embraced his current role wholeheartedly.
Since becoming board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases, Dr. Kim has welcomed the opportunity to be part of hospital medicine, which gives him the opportunity to pursue his other passion: teaching and mentoring.
“It’s not just what you know but how you convey what you know to other people,” said Dr. Kim. “While you might get useful information from a didactic teaching style, it’s important to ask questions to encourage the learner to think about not only what the right answer is but also what’s the thought process required to get the answer.”
As one of the newest additions to the editorial advisory board of The Hospitalist, Dr. Kim took time to tell us more about himself in a recent interview.
QUESTION: How did you find your career path in medicine?
ANSWER: I originally went into medical school thinking I was going to do pediatrics, but then I realized that I really enjoy talking to people and that I like the process of thinking through diagnoses, managing patients, and learning about what makes their circumstances unique.
Q: How did you get into hospital medicine?
A: When I finished my internal medicine residency, I thought I was going to do medical missions. However, I realized along the way that the care you need to provide in order to really make a difference in other countries requires a constant presence there – not just a week or two. So after my fellowship, I was searching for jobs and found a hospitalist position at the University of California, Los Angeles. When I saw it, I thought ‘Wow, I really miss doing inpatient medicine.’
Q: Since you started, what have been some of your favorite parts of hospital medicine?
A: When people come to you in the hospital setting, they are usually pretty sick. It is very satisfying when, through the course of a person’s hospital stay, we are able to come up with a plan that can get them acutely better.
Q: What do you think is the hardest part of hospital medicine?
A: I think one of the things that is most frustrating is when we are placed into a situation in which we are not necessarily doing medical work for a patient but are doing something more like social work. For instance, there are cases in which patients can not be on their own in the community, and there’s no family to take them in, so the hospital, on behalf of the state, has to take them in.
Q: What else do you do outside of hospitalist work?
A: Since I’ve finished medical school, I’ve always been in some kind of academia, which is not something I would have expected. But as time has gone by, I have really come to appreciate being in academia. I really enjoy teaching, and I also think that an academic institution kind of keeps me on my toes. I’m involved with interprofessional education at Emory, with teaching medical students, interns, and residents when I’m on teaching service, and obviously now I’m on The Hospitalist editorial board. I’m looking forward to keeping abreast of what’s hot in the world of hospital medicine.
Q: What are you excited about bringing to The Hospitalist editorial board?
A: I want to try to contribute ideas. I feel that even in my short time at Emory, I’ve gotten to know a few people who might be good resources for reporters to interview or even who might write articles themselves. I also think that seeing what is trending in the world of hospital medicine is a nice way of understanding the future direction of hospital medicine.
Q: What have you seen as being the biggest change in hospital medicine since you started?
A: I feel as though I’ve kept my head down and plowed forward through the first part of my career, but I think that, more than anything else, what I’ve noticed is bigger shifts within health care itself. I know that there’s a lot of consolidation going on. I think that there are many questions that are going to come up about how do we manage a health care system as complicated as America’s and how do we deliver optimal care to people especially when sometimes we end up in situations in which we don’t have all the resources that we would want to have because of circumstances.
Q: Do you see anything in particular on the horizon for hospital medicine?
A: I’ve noticed that there’s been more “hospitalist-ization” – if that’s even a term – of other medical services. At our institution, we already have an acute care service that is basically hospital medicine for general surgery. I think another thing that’s been kind of a hot topic recently is a point-of-care testing, including ultrasounds for line placements.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: I really enjoy my work at Emory. I want to find more opportunities to teach. For example, I’ve already gotten involved in teaching physician assistant students about how to perform interviews and deliver presentations for attendings. A lot of serendipitous things have happened to me over time, so I think I will continue to teach, but I’m open to those opportunities that present themselves in the future.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read recently and why?
A: “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell. This is a very well-known book – I think George Lucas made reference to it when he was writing Star Wars – but I think it was a great literary way to examine the hero’s journey. Once you read the book, and you then watch any kind of movie or read any other kind of adventure narrative, you can’t miss the pattern.
QI enthusiast to QI leader: Sheri Chernetsky Tejedor, MD
Armed with a background in engineering, Sheri Chernetsky Tejedor, MD, SFHM, had already adopted a mindset of system reliability and design improvement when she began her journey in hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
After completing her studies there, Dr. Tejedor was quick to find a place at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and began working toward a future in health care quality improvement (QI).
“I gravitated early on toward what was essentially quality improvement work,” Dr. Tejedor told The Hospitalist.
Dr. Tejedor worked with two mentors at a community hospital associated with Emory University who helped influence her success in QI: Mark V. Williams, MD, FACP, MHM, who is now the director of the Center for Health Services Research at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and Jason Stein, MD, SFHM, who is currently a hospitalist at Emory University Hospital.
“They wanted to develop quality improvement expertise and get some of us trained,” she said. “These advocates, or mentors, were critical for me. They are people who went above and beyond to help with career planning and thinking through possibilities.”
Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein traveled to Intermountain Healthcare, a not-for-profit health system based in Salt Lake City that focuses on medical innovation, to participate in a rigorous quality training program.
“It was extremely intense,” said Dr. Tejedor. “You worked over several months to get a certificate from the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Research, and it’s all focused on quality improvement methodology.”
After completing this program, Dr. Tejedor continued on her quality improvement path by focusing on research while also simultaneously working part time and taking care of her three young children. During this phase of her career, Dr. Tejedor and her colleagues published a study on idle central venous catheters, which became a primary reference for part of the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely® campaign.
Dr. Tejedor said that, in addition to research, she explored different leadership roles, such as taking charge of central line teams and nurses working on device insertion practices. Her successful projects drew notice, and soon Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein helped to implement a stronger focus on quality improvement at their organization.
“Our health system was very entrenched in that QI culture,” Dr. Tejedor said. “After Jason and I went to Intermountain, many of the Emory Healthcare leadership also got trained in Utah, and we ultimately built a quality course at Emory that mirrored it.”
Dr. Tejedor’s research evolved to intersect with clinical informatics. She leveraged the organization’s electronic medical record to test her work.
“[The EMR] is ubiquitous, and that was a good way to reach staff, test interventions, and get data,” Dr. Tejedor said. “I built a lot of tools that were helpful for the health system.”
One of these tools was a device to monitor central line infections that was linked with clinical informatics as part of a large grant project. This led to another leadership opportunity: She assumed the role of chief research information officer and director for analytics at Emory Healthcare in 2013.
In 2014, Dr. Tejedor began working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the first hospitalist and informatics specialist on the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, where she continues to hold a position. She is also a medical advisor for the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, focusing on electronic quality measures.
For those hospitalists pursuing QI, exposure to formal training is essential, Dr. Tejedor said. That may not mean flying to Utah, she noted, but garnering a deeper understanding of informatics is crucial.
When it comes to leadership, Dr. Tejedor recommends that those looking to take charge develop social skills and embrace parts of medicine that may be unfamiliar yet essential.
“Learn a little bit about the business side, which you may not know much about as a doctor taking care of patients,” she said. “Learn just enough to understand what goes into people’s decision making when they are choosing what projects get approved.”
Dr. Tejedor encourages hospitalists to focus on developing relationships because that was one of the keys to her success as a quality improvement leader.
“It’s about gaining the trust of the staff, mutual respect, working with the nurses, and getting to know the leadership and the people who make the financial decisions,” she said. “Even if you have the money for a quality improvement project, it will fail if you don’t work with the various teams to understand their needs and how to make it work for them.”
ezimmerman@frontlinemedcom.com
On Twitter @eaztweets
Armed with a background in engineering, Sheri Chernetsky Tejedor, MD, SFHM, had already adopted a mindset of system reliability and design improvement when she began her journey in hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
After completing her studies there, Dr. Tejedor was quick to find a place at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and began working toward a future in health care quality improvement (QI).
“I gravitated early on toward what was essentially quality improvement work,” Dr. Tejedor told The Hospitalist.
Dr. Tejedor worked with two mentors at a community hospital associated with Emory University who helped influence her success in QI: Mark V. Williams, MD, FACP, MHM, who is now the director of the Center for Health Services Research at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and Jason Stein, MD, SFHM, who is currently a hospitalist at Emory University Hospital.
“They wanted to develop quality improvement expertise and get some of us trained,” she said. “These advocates, or mentors, were critical for me. They are people who went above and beyond to help with career planning and thinking through possibilities.”
Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein traveled to Intermountain Healthcare, a not-for-profit health system based in Salt Lake City that focuses on medical innovation, to participate in a rigorous quality training program.
“It was extremely intense,” said Dr. Tejedor. “You worked over several months to get a certificate from the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Research, and it’s all focused on quality improvement methodology.”
After completing this program, Dr. Tejedor continued on her quality improvement path by focusing on research while also simultaneously working part time and taking care of her three young children. During this phase of her career, Dr. Tejedor and her colleagues published a study on idle central venous catheters, which became a primary reference for part of the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely® campaign.
Dr. Tejedor said that, in addition to research, she explored different leadership roles, such as taking charge of central line teams and nurses working on device insertion practices. Her successful projects drew notice, and soon Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein helped to implement a stronger focus on quality improvement at their organization.
“Our health system was very entrenched in that QI culture,” Dr. Tejedor said. “After Jason and I went to Intermountain, many of the Emory Healthcare leadership also got trained in Utah, and we ultimately built a quality course at Emory that mirrored it.”
Dr. Tejedor’s research evolved to intersect with clinical informatics. She leveraged the organization’s electronic medical record to test her work.
“[The EMR] is ubiquitous, and that was a good way to reach staff, test interventions, and get data,” Dr. Tejedor said. “I built a lot of tools that were helpful for the health system.”
One of these tools was a device to monitor central line infections that was linked with clinical informatics as part of a large grant project. This led to another leadership opportunity: She assumed the role of chief research information officer and director for analytics at Emory Healthcare in 2013.
In 2014, Dr. Tejedor began working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the first hospitalist and informatics specialist on the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, where she continues to hold a position. She is also a medical advisor for the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, focusing on electronic quality measures.
For those hospitalists pursuing QI, exposure to formal training is essential, Dr. Tejedor said. That may not mean flying to Utah, she noted, but garnering a deeper understanding of informatics is crucial.
When it comes to leadership, Dr. Tejedor recommends that those looking to take charge develop social skills and embrace parts of medicine that may be unfamiliar yet essential.
“Learn a little bit about the business side, which you may not know much about as a doctor taking care of patients,” she said. “Learn just enough to understand what goes into people’s decision making when they are choosing what projects get approved.”
Dr. Tejedor encourages hospitalists to focus on developing relationships because that was one of the keys to her success as a quality improvement leader.
“It’s about gaining the trust of the staff, mutual respect, working with the nurses, and getting to know the leadership and the people who make the financial decisions,” she said. “Even if you have the money for a quality improvement project, it will fail if you don’t work with the various teams to understand their needs and how to make it work for them.”
ezimmerman@frontlinemedcom.com
On Twitter @eaztweets
Armed with a background in engineering, Sheri Chernetsky Tejedor, MD, SFHM, had already adopted a mindset of system reliability and design improvement when she began her journey in hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
After completing her studies there, Dr. Tejedor was quick to find a place at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and began working toward a future in health care quality improvement (QI).
“I gravitated early on toward what was essentially quality improvement work,” Dr. Tejedor told The Hospitalist.
Dr. Tejedor worked with two mentors at a community hospital associated with Emory University who helped influence her success in QI: Mark V. Williams, MD, FACP, MHM, who is now the director of the Center for Health Services Research at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and Jason Stein, MD, SFHM, who is currently a hospitalist at Emory University Hospital.
“They wanted to develop quality improvement expertise and get some of us trained,” she said. “These advocates, or mentors, were critical for me. They are people who went above and beyond to help with career planning and thinking through possibilities.”
Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein traveled to Intermountain Healthcare, a not-for-profit health system based in Salt Lake City that focuses on medical innovation, to participate in a rigorous quality training program.
“It was extremely intense,” said Dr. Tejedor. “You worked over several months to get a certificate from the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Research, and it’s all focused on quality improvement methodology.”
After completing this program, Dr. Tejedor continued on her quality improvement path by focusing on research while also simultaneously working part time and taking care of her three young children. During this phase of her career, Dr. Tejedor and her colleagues published a study on idle central venous catheters, which became a primary reference for part of the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely® campaign.
Dr. Tejedor said that, in addition to research, she explored different leadership roles, such as taking charge of central line teams and nurses working on device insertion practices. Her successful projects drew notice, and soon Dr. Tejedor and Dr. Stein helped to implement a stronger focus on quality improvement at their organization.
“Our health system was very entrenched in that QI culture,” Dr. Tejedor said. “After Jason and I went to Intermountain, many of the Emory Healthcare leadership also got trained in Utah, and we ultimately built a quality course at Emory that mirrored it.”
Dr. Tejedor’s research evolved to intersect with clinical informatics. She leveraged the organization’s electronic medical record to test her work.
“[The EMR] is ubiquitous, and that was a good way to reach staff, test interventions, and get data,” Dr. Tejedor said. “I built a lot of tools that were helpful for the health system.”
One of these tools was a device to monitor central line infections that was linked with clinical informatics as part of a large grant project. This led to another leadership opportunity: She assumed the role of chief research information officer and director for analytics at Emory Healthcare in 2013.
In 2014, Dr. Tejedor began working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the first hospitalist and informatics specialist on the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, where she continues to hold a position. She is also a medical advisor for the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, focusing on electronic quality measures.
For those hospitalists pursuing QI, exposure to formal training is essential, Dr. Tejedor said. That may not mean flying to Utah, she noted, but garnering a deeper understanding of informatics is crucial.
When it comes to leadership, Dr. Tejedor recommends that those looking to take charge develop social skills and embrace parts of medicine that may be unfamiliar yet essential.
“Learn a little bit about the business side, which you may not know much about as a doctor taking care of patients,” she said. “Learn just enough to understand what goes into people’s decision making when they are choosing what projects get approved.”
Dr. Tejedor encourages hospitalists to focus on developing relationships because that was one of the keys to her success as a quality improvement leader.
“It’s about gaining the trust of the staff, mutual respect, working with the nurses, and getting to know the leadership and the people who make the financial decisions,” she said. “Even if you have the money for a quality improvement project, it will fail if you don’t work with the various teams to understand their needs and how to make it work for them.”
ezimmerman@frontlinemedcom.com
On Twitter @eaztweets
Sneak Peek: The Hospital Leader blog – Dec. 2017
Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike
On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who stumbled upon this. Harvard researcher Julie Silver, MD, raised the question about invisible women leaders when reviewing quotes in magazines like Modern Healthcare or Forbes. Moreover, her research demonstrates that, for many professional society awards, 0% are given to women! This is happening in specialties that had nearly even proportions of women and men in practice, such as dermatology and rehab medicine. Last month, I was dumbfounded when I saw a full-page New York Times ad of Top Surgeons by Castle Connolly featuring 16 surgeons, all male.
While Castle Connolly does name female top doctors and market ad opportunities to women and men, I learned that only men sign up for the ads. While this raises more questions, the optics remain problematic – women doctors are hidden. Regardless of the venue, we must do a better job profiling our female leaders. In addition, it is important to recognize that female leaders face well-documented and somewhat controversial challenges that require careful thought:
- Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
- Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.
Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
Also on The Hospital Leader …
- If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
- Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
- Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
- Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM
Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike
On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who stumbled upon this. Harvard researcher Julie Silver, MD, raised the question about invisible women leaders when reviewing quotes in magazines like Modern Healthcare or Forbes. Moreover, her research demonstrates that, for many professional society awards, 0% are given to women! This is happening in specialties that had nearly even proportions of women and men in practice, such as dermatology and rehab medicine. Last month, I was dumbfounded when I saw a full-page New York Times ad of Top Surgeons by Castle Connolly featuring 16 surgeons, all male.
While Castle Connolly does name female top doctors and market ad opportunities to women and men, I learned that only men sign up for the ads. While this raises more questions, the optics remain problematic – women doctors are hidden. Regardless of the venue, we must do a better job profiling our female leaders. In addition, it is important to recognize that female leaders face well-documented and somewhat controversial challenges that require careful thought:
- Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
- Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.
Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
Also on The Hospital Leader …
- If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
- Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
- Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
- Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM
Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike
On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who stumbled upon this. Harvard researcher Julie Silver, MD, raised the question about invisible women leaders when reviewing quotes in magazines like Modern Healthcare or Forbes. Moreover, her research demonstrates that, for many professional society awards, 0% are given to women! This is happening in specialties that had nearly even proportions of women and men in practice, such as dermatology and rehab medicine. Last month, I was dumbfounded when I saw a full-page New York Times ad of Top Surgeons by Castle Connolly featuring 16 surgeons, all male.
While Castle Connolly does name female top doctors and market ad opportunities to women and men, I learned that only men sign up for the ads. While this raises more questions, the optics remain problematic – women doctors are hidden. Regardless of the venue, we must do a better job profiling our female leaders. In addition, it is important to recognize that female leaders face well-documented and somewhat controversial challenges that require careful thought:
- Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
- Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.
Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
Also on The Hospital Leader …
- If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
- Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
- Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
- Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM
Project improves noninvasive IUC alternatives
Editor’s note: The Society of Hospital Medicine’s (SHM’s) Physician in Training Committee launched a scholarship program in 2015 for medical students to help transform health care and revolutionize patient care. The program has been expanded for the 2017-18 year, offering two options for students to receive funding and engage in scholarly work during their first, second and third years of medical school. As a part of the longitudinal (18-month) program, recipients are required to write about their experience on a monthly basis.
It truly has been a rewarding experience participating in a quality improvement project and I am excited to see what the future holds. Our project, “Reducing CAUTI with Noninvasive UC Alternatives and Measure-vention,” aimed to combat catheter associated urinary tract infections, with a three-pronged approach: by reducing UC placement, performing proper maintenance of IUC, and ensuring prompt removal of unnecessary UC.
To date, our project has demonstrated qualitative success. Specifically, we have implemented a pipeline to perform “measure-vention,” or real-time monitoring and correction of defects. The surgical care intensive unit (SICU) was identified as an appropriate candidate for a pilot partnership due to its high utilization of UC. A daily report of patients with UC is generated and then checked against the EMR for UC necessity. Subsequently, we contact the unit RN for details and physicians for removal orders, when possible. Simultaneously, this enables us to reinforce our management bundle in real time. This protocol is being effectively implemented in the SICU and we are hoping to expand to other units as well. Quantitative data collection is still ongoing and hopefully forthcoming.
Previous CAUTI reduction efforts have had variable and partial success. We are very excited to have improved noninvasive IUC alternatives that address staff concerns about incontinence workload, urine output monitoring, and patient comfort. We hope to protect our patients from harm and eventually publicize our experience to help other health care facilities reduce IUC use and CAUTI.
It has been a rewarding experience to participate in a quality improvement project and I am enjoying the challenges of collaborating with a diverse team of medical professionals to improve the patient experience.
Victor Ekuta is a third-year medical student at UC San Diego.
Editor’s note: The Society of Hospital Medicine’s (SHM’s) Physician in Training Committee launched a scholarship program in 2015 for medical students to help transform health care and revolutionize patient care. The program has been expanded for the 2017-18 year, offering two options for students to receive funding and engage in scholarly work during their first, second and third years of medical school. As a part of the longitudinal (18-month) program, recipients are required to write about their experience on a monthly basis.
It truly has been a rewarding experience participating in a quality improvement project and I am excited to see what the future holds. Our project, “Reducing CAUTI with Noninvasive UC Alternatives and Measure-vention,” aimed to combat catheter associated urinary tract infections, with a three-pronged approach: by reducing UC placement, performing proper maintenance of IUC, and ensuring prompt removal of unnecessary UC.
To date, our project has demonstrated qualitative success. Specifically, we have implemented a pipeline to perform “measure-vention,” or real-time monitoring and correction of defects. The surgical care intensive unit (SICU) was identified as an appropriate candidate for a pilot partnership due to its high utilization of UC. A daily report of patients with UC is generated and then checked against the EMR for UC necessity. Subsequently, we contact the unit RN for details and physicians for removal orders, when possible. Simultaneously, this enables us to reinforce our management bundle in real time. This protocol is being effectively implemented in the SICU and we are hoping to expand to other units as well. Quantitative data collection is still ongoing and hopefully forthcoming.
Previous CAUTI reduction efforts have had variable and partial success. We are very excited to have improved noninvasive IUC alternatives that address staff concerns about incontinence workload, urine output monitoring, and patient comfort. We hope to protect our patients from harm and eventually publicize our experience to help other health care facilities reduce IUC use and CAUTI.
It has been a rewarding experience to participate in a quality improvement project and I am enjoying the challenges of collaborating with a diverse team of medical professionals to improve the patient experience.
Victor Ekuta is a third-year medical student at UC San Diego.
Editor’s note: The Society of Hospital Medicine’s (SHM’s) Physician in Training Committee launched a scholarship program in 2015 for medical students to help transform health care and revolutionize patient care. The program has been expanded for the 2017-18 year, offering two options for students to receive funding and engage in scholarly work during their first, second and third years of medical school. As a part of the longitudinal (18-month) program, recipients are required to write about their experience on a monthly basis.
It truly has been a rewarding experience participating in a quality improvement project and I am excited to see what the future holds. Our project, “Reducing CAUTI with Noninvasive UC Alternatives and Measure-vention,” aimed to combat catheter associated urinary tract infections, with a three-pronged approach: by reducing UC placement, performing proper maintenance of IUC, and ensuring prompt removal of unnecessary UC.
To date, our project has demonstrated qualitative success. Specifically, we have implemented a pipeline to perform “measure-vention,” or real-time monitoring and correction of defects. The surgical care intensive unit (SICU) was identified as an appropriate candidate for a pilot partnership due to its high utilization of UC. A daily report of patients with UC is generated and then checked against the EMR for UC necessity. Subsequently, we contact the unit RN for details and physicians for removal orders, when possible. Simultaneously, this enables us to reinforce our management bundle in real time. This protocol is being effectively implemented in the SICU and we are hoping to expand to other units as well. Quantitative data collection is still ongoing and hopefully forthcoming.
Previous CAUTI reduction efforts have had variable and partial success. We are very excited to have improved noninvasive IUC alternatives that address staff concerns about incontinence workload, urine output monitoring, and patient comfort. We hope to protect our patients from harm and eventually publicize our experience to help other health care facilities reduce IUC use and CAUTI.
It has been a rewarding experience to participate in a quality improvement project and I am enjoying the challenges of collaborating with a diverse team of medical professionals to improve the patient experience.
Victor Ekuta is a third-year medical student at UC San Diego.
