This year marks the 10-year anniversary of Robert Wachter’s coining of the term “hospitalist,” as well as the celebration of the decade-old SHM. The celebration culminates in a stellar annual meeting that epitomizes the growth of hospital medicine.
The SHM Annual Meeting attendance has grown from just a handful of participants to more than 1,200 expected at the 2007 Annual Meeting. More importantly, as the role of hospitalists has changed from primarily focusing on providing care to the hospitalized patient to serving as the leader of quality improvement, a key staff educator, and a facilitator of care transitions, so have their educational needs. Thus, the annual meeting has evolved in order to provide an educational experience that has relevance on a practical level.
The SHM 2007 Annual Meeting Committee (AMC), led by Course Director Chad Whelan, MD, challenged itself to develop a program that will meet the needs of a diverse audience that includes community-based and academic-based hospitalists; research-oriented and clinician-focused seasoned veteran physicians and early career hospitalists; as well as pediatric, geriatric, and family practice hospitalists. Such an effort begins with the big picture: What is happening in the environment that will impact healthcare today and in the future?
The answer is found in the role of information technology, and SHM will welcome two renowned speakers to provide current and future perspectives. David Brailer, MD, PhD, the first National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2004-2006), will examine the forces driving health information technology and how technology affects pressures on the quality and cost of care. Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, chief medical officer and senior vice president for Quality for Hospital Corporation of America, will look to healthcare’s challenges and opportunities in the decade ahead, with a focus on health IT and performance and the role of hospital medicine as it relates to care improvement.
The 2007 Annual Meeting will again feature Robert Wachter, MD, as the keynote speaker in the closing plenary session. Dr. Wachter is sure to entertain as he examines “The Hospitalist Movement a Decade Later: Life as a Swiss Army Knife.”
The goal of a broad-based program will be achieved through separate breakout sessions and workshops, divided into seven tracks. Though the format is similar to other years, the 2007 program has some new twists. One clinical track focuses on “Things You Didn’t Learn in Medical School,” and a palliative care track has been added. Relevant sessions have been selected using the Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine and collaborating with SHM’s committees, which serve the interests of all of the groups.
The connection between the program and SHM’s committees will be strong. The committees will focus their efforts on topics and goals that are important to our members. The AMC solicits ideas for breakout sessions from the committees; it also profiles the output of a committee that has significance to attendees in their daily responsibilities.
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Suggestions from the committees have resulted in a combination of pertinent and innovative sessions. Here are just a few to whet your appetite for the complete program:
- A workshop jointly planned by the Hospital Quality and Patient Safety (HQPS) and Education Committees, designed to obtain input and consensus on SHM-developed communication and hand-off standards;
- An Academic Track, intended to appeal to those hospitalists focused on teaching, quality improvement, research, and growing a hospital medicine program;
- A workshop, proposed by the Career Satisfaction Task Force, that addresses relevant career issues from the leaders’ and hospitalists’ perspectives;
- A Quality Track defined by the HQPS Committee that, in addition to the consensus-building workshop, features medication reconciliation and Toyota Methods sessions;
- A Pediatric Track, designed to address the needs of our fastest growing member segment, features a range of clinical and leadership topics, including electronic health records, the prevention of the transmission of infectious agents, and the utilization of dashboards to improve care;
- The work of the Benchmarks Committee will be profiled in a session that will demonstrate how to use key performance metrics to improve hospital medicine and the care of the hospitalized patient;
- The Public Policy Committee has recommended a pay-for-performance (P4P) breakout session, because P4P has been identified as an important issue in hospital medicine;
- A Palliative Care Track, proposed and developed by the Palliative Care Task Force, includes relevant topics such as pain management, the ethical and legal considerations of palliative care, and communications skills; and
- A visiting professor, Stephan Fihn, MD, MPH, will conduct poster rounds, lead a workshop, and participate in “Breakfast with Leaders in Hospital Medicine.”