Behind the Scenes
Change is in the air
By Geri Barnes
It’s autumn and there is a bite to the air. Every year around this time, I vacillate between being depressed about the pending winter and energized by the change of season. This year, I definitely am excited and energized.
As weather is one of those environmental dynamics that impacts daily life, so do changes in the healthcare arena impact on SHM and its life. We’ve seen “never events” come into being, an expansion of CMS’ Hospitals Compare, and an increasing focus on pay-for-performance. All of these factors are designed to improve patient care, particularly care of the hospitalized patient. SHM staff needs to be ready to support the hospital medicine community.
click for large version
Above: SHM board members had the opportunity to check out blueprints and designs of the new headquarters in Philadelphia. The office is scheduled to be ready in December. Below: SHM staff and board members toast the 16,000-square-foot facility.
click for large version
SHM long has been focused on defining and providing hospitalists with the education and resources needed for every day practice, as well as for imple- menting cutting-edge quality improvement interventions. To support these focus areas, our staff members were organized in one department, Education and Quality Initiatives. During the last year, we decided our efforts would be better served by creating two departments: Education and Meetings and Quality Initiatives. Last summer, we hired two new staff members to lead the department and move the quality efforts forward. Jane Kelly-Cummings, RN, CPHQ, senior director, Quality Initiatives, has more than 20 years of experience in clinical practice, quality improvement, patient safety, healthcare informatics and quality improvement education. Linda Boclair, MT (ASCP), MEd, MBA, brings to SHM 25 years of management in the healthcare industry and serves as the Quality Initiatives Department director. You will be hearing more about the Quality Initiatives Department in the near future.
I am heading up the newly organized Education and Meetings Department. I am joined by Erica Pearson, director, Meetings; Theresa Jones, education project manager; Meghan Pitzer, meetings coordinator; and Carolyn Brennan, director, Research Program Development. We are charged with managing SHM’s Education Enterprise, which includes meetings and all other educational activities that support our members.
For meetings, we focus on leading our volunteers in the development of relevant program and educational content, ensuring we meet the requirements for continuing medical education (CME) programs. We design and implement meeting logistics with a common goal: the attendees leave the meeting feeling nothing could have been better organized. The Education and Meetings staff has focused their energies on the following meetings:
click for large version
click for large version
- The cornerstone of our meetings is the SHM annual meeting. Hospital Medicine 2009 will take place May 14-17, 2009, in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency. The planning of the program and logistics began in March 2008, and the organizational effort will continue through the end of the meeting. This comprehensive program includes annual meeting education sessions over the course of two and a half days and another full day of seven concurrent pre-courses.
- An important educational event is SHM’s Leadership Academy. Established in 2005, the Level I Academy has been presented semi-annually, with the eighth event taking place in Los Angeles this past September. Based on a need for the next level of leadership skills, Level II started in 2006 and recently presented for the third time. All events have basically sold out, and their popularity continues to grow.
- SHM instituted the One-Day Hospitalist University (ODHU) series this year, presenting four of our best pre-courses on a regional basis. The goal is to present ODHU in four different locations during the course of the year. The first ODHU takes place this month in Baltimore; the next is Feb. 3-4 in Atlanta.
- Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2009 was held in July in Denver. As the lead sponsor, SHM organized this successful conference, which was co-sponsored by the American Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Expert Training Sessions is a new series of educational events that provide the opportunity to learn quality improvement strategies for glycemic control, VTE prevention, or transitions of care directly from an expert and interact on a personal basis. Presented in Boston and Nashville and planned for St. Louis, this initiative already is proving successful and we are hoping to expand in the near future.