Puneet Varma (Editor)

Society of Hospital Medicine

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Founded
  
1997

Type of business
  
Nonprofit organization

Society of Hospital Medicine httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsaa

Industry
  
Hospital Medicine, Hospitalists, Internal Medicine

Key people
  
Laurence Wellikson, MD, SFHM (CEO); Burke T. Kealey, MD, SFHM (Current President)

Services
  
Education, Practice Management, Careers, Advocacy, Community

Website
  
www.hospitalmedicine.org

Headquarters
  
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Similar
  
American College of Physicians, American Board of Internal M, American Hospital Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate, Kaiser Family Foundation

Profiles

Society of hospital medicine the home for hospitalists


The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is an American membership society for hospitalists, that is, physicians and other caregivers who practice the specialty of hospital medicine.

Contents

SHM is focused on supporting the hospital medicine industry and individual hospitalists. SHM provides continuing education and industry updates for hospitalists in its monthly publication, The Hospitalist, and peer-reviewed journal for hospital medicine, the Journal of Hospital Medicine. In addition to its publications, SHM conducts surveys, prepares written analyses and offers discussion forums that aid in the overall development of the specialty of hospital medicine.

SHM is focused on providing resources, programs and mentoring for quality improvement program for reducing readmissions and hospital acquired diseases while optimizing transitions of care, glycemic control and overall patient care. An integral role of SHM has been the development of policy and position statements to address the concerns and issues of hospitalists and advocating on behalf of hospitalists before government and regulatory agencies.

Staff care attends the society of hospital medicine 2016 conference


History

Founded in 1997 by Internists John Nelson, MD, MHM, of Bellevue, Washington and Winthrop Whitcomb, MD, MHM, of Springfield, Massachusetts, SHM was originally known as the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP). SHM’s goals include promoting high-quality care for hospitalized patients; advancing education and research in hospital medicine; enhancing medical teamwork to achieve the best care for hospitalized patients; supporting career paths to attract and retain high quality hospitalists; defining competencies, activities and needs of the hospitalist community; and advocating, proposing, and promoting changes to the healthcare system that lead to better care by hospitalists.

A History of SHM, and in many ways the Hospital Medicine Movement:

  • 1996: In a New England Journal of Medicine article, Drs. Robert M. Wachter and Lee Goldman coin the term “hospitalist”
  • 1997 (January): A national database of hospitalists and hospital medicine programs is developed and put to use by the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) with its first newsletter mailing
  • 1997 (April): The initial national meeting of hospitalists is held as NAIP holds its first meeting (“Management of the Hospitalized Patient” Conference), hosted by University of California, San Francisco
  • 1998 (April): NAIP holds its first annual meeting not affiliated with another event
  • 1999 (Spring): NAIP issues a position statement that referrals to hospitalists from primary physicians should be voluntary
  • 2003 (Spring): NAIP officially changes its name to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)
  • 2008 (September): SHM selects and implements first six Project BOOST pilot sites
  • 2010 (April): SHM published The Core Competencies in Pediatric Hospital Medicine with endorsement from the Academic Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics
  • Continuing Education and Professional Development

    The specialty of hospital medicine is made up of a varied constituency with both overlapping and discrete educational needs. These constituencies include academic hospitalists, clinicians-internists, family physicians, pediatricians, hospital medicine group leaders, researchers, clinical educators, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, hospital administrators, and pharmacists.

    The Society focuses on lifelong learning for all of these. Its main focus is the enhancement of hospitalists’ knowledge on topics related to specific clinical situations and the fostering of independent learning through traditional and emerging channels.

    Members of SHM can also be earn or be nominated to become a Fellow and Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine.

    The Society of Hospital Medicine’s Fellows Program is rooted in the Society’s Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine. Those who earn the Fellow in Hospital Medicine (FHM), Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine (SFHM) or Master in Hospital Medicine (MHM) designations have demonstrated their commitment to hospital medicine, system change and quality improvement principles.

  • To become a Fellow in Hospital Medicine, the candidate must demonstrate a commitment to hospital medicine and must follow certain requirements in order to receive Hospital Medicine Designation.
  • To become a Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine, the candidate must follow a similar process to that of becoming a fellow, but with additional criteria within the pillars of leadership, teamwork and quality improvement enable candidates to demonstrate a higher level of performance and commitment to hospital medicine.Members of SHM can also attain their Master in Hospital Medicine.
  • Masters in Hospital Medicine are distinguished by the excellence and significance of his or her contributions to the field of hospital medicine and healthcare as a whole. They have been selected because of: Personal character, positions of honor, contributions towards furthering the goals of the Society of Hospital Medicine, distinction in practice education, medical research, and other achievements in science or in the art of hospital medicine.

    Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Maintenance of Certification (MOC)

    Hospital medicine is the first area to be awarded focused practice recognition by ABIM, a major milestone for the field.

    Project BOOST

    Project BOOST (Better Outcomes by Optimizing Safe Transitions) is an initiative wherein hospitals receive expert monitoring and peer support to aid in improving the care of patients as the transition from hospital to home. BOOST members help hospital teams to map current processes and create and implement actions plans for organizational change. BOOST provides a suite of evidence-based clinical interventions that can be easily adapted and integrated into each unique hospital environment. By improving the hospital discharge care transition. Project BOOST aims to:

  • Identify patients at high risk of re-hospitalization and target specific interventions to mitigate potential adverse events
  • Reduce 20-day readmission rates
  • Improve patient satisfaction scores and H-CAHPS scores related to discharge
  • Improve flow of information between hospital and outpatient providers
  • Improve communication between providers and patients
  • Optimize discharge process
  • Project BOOST centers around 5 Key Elements, and there are currently over 180 mentor sites, located in 31 United States and one in Canada, which participate in Project BOOST.

    Advocacy and Public Policy

    In recent years, SHM and its members have changed the healthcare landscape by:

  • Connecting hospitalists with members of Congress and their staffs
  • Working to ensure that hospitalists have sensible pathways for participation in Medicare pay for performance programs
  • Championing improved access to skilled nursing facility coverage for Medicare beneficiaries
  • Relationship with Sanofi-Aventis

    In May 2011, staff of the Senate Finance Committee issued a report concerning Sanofi-Aventis efforts to secure favorable comments from medical societies to the Food and Drug Administration. These comments raised safety concerns about generic equivalents to the Sanofi-Aventis product Lovenox.

    The report, initiated as a result of an article by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal, and a physician (Victor Tapson, MD) as having submitted comments as part of the Citizen Petition Process without disclosing in the letter their financial ties to the pharmaceutical. In the case of SHM, those ties amounted to over $2.0M (since 2007) for a variety of uses that included exhibit space, sponsorship and other outreach.

    References

    Society of Hospital Medicine Wikipedia