Overall, the course was structured to facilitate interaction and small group exercises. The interactive sessions provided opportunities for participants to apply concepts.
Mark Williams, MD stresses SMART principles of Strategic Planning
Use of facilitators greatly augmented the impact of this training. Participants in the course sat ten to a table, and each table was led by an experienced hospitalist leader trained to be a facilitator. We were extraordinarily fortunate to have leaders in hospital medicine as facilitators including: Mary Jo Gorman, Bill Atchley, Pat Cawley, Lisa Kettering, Alpesh Amin, Ron Greeno, Burke Kealey, Eric Siegal, Stacy Goldsholl, and Eric Howell.
The impact of the meeting was powerfully described by a facilitator, “I’ve never before experienced such sustained energy and enthusiasm at a meeting. People literally spent hours after the didactic sessions talking, sharing ideas, and commiserating. Speaks to the pent-up need for this, and the effectiveness of the curriculum in galvanizing the group.”
No meeting can be such a success without tremendous support from SHM staff. Angela Musial and Erica Pearson deserve our sincere thanks for handling all the logistical issues and guaranteeing a terrific time for everyone who attended. They ensured that everything worked without a hitch including two wonderful receptions, which fostered networking and opportunities to share challenges and success stories.
The Society of Hospital Medicine will hold another Leadership Academy this Fall: September 12–15 in Vail, Colorado. The learning objectives for the Leadership Academy highlight the skills hospitalists can gain by attending.
- Evaluate personal leadership strengths and weaknesses and apply them to everyday leadership and management challenges
- Effectively advocate the value of their Hospital Medicine program
- Predict and plan for the near-term challenges affecting the viability of their Hospital Medicine program
- Improve patient outcomes through successful planning, allocation of resources, collaboration, teamwork, and execution
- Create and execute a communication strategy for all key constituencies
- Interpret key hospital drivers
- Examine how hospital performance metrics are derived and how hospital medicine practices can influence and impact these metrics
- Implement methods of effective change through leadership, shared vision, and managing the organizational culture
- Utilize strategic planning to define a vision for their program, prioritize efforts, and achieve designated goals
Registration will again be limited to 100 hospitalist leaders and we expect this to fill quickly. The first Leadership Academy was sold out months before it was held, and interest in the September 2005 Leadership Academy in Vail is equally as strong after the rousing success of the January meeting in Tucson. If you are interested in attending, registration information can be found on page 19, at the SHM Web site at www.hospitalmedicine.org, or by calling SHM at 800-843-3360. We look forward to seeing you there.