Although based in an academic hospital program at the University of Colorado Denver, new SHM board member Jeffrey Glasheen, MD, SFHM, does not view himself as representative of only academic hospitalist groups on the board.
“I’d like to say I represent the constituency that cares about the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery—and that includes every hospitalist,” says Dr. Glasheen, who has played major roles in developing SHM’s Academic Hospitalist Academy and Academic Hospital Medicine Leadership Summit, and now chairs its Academic Committee.
Dr. Glasheen, who recently resigned as physician editor of the The Hospitalist is a senior deputy editor of the Journal of Hospital Medicine and was course director of HM12 in San Diego earlier this month. He intends to “push the envelope” for quality issues in his service on the board. “Quality is the best conceivable care you can provide, and clearly, where we are today is not there yet,” he says.
Dr. Glasheen, who is committed to giving hospitalists the skills they need to elevate the quality of hospital care, says that starts with redesigning residency programs and medical school curriculums to teach quality improvement (QI). He believes that payment and healthcare reform will put hospitalists in a great position to serve as their hospitals’ quality leaders, “but it’s also going to take inspired leadership,” he says. Hospitalists and hospitals need to make quality a major priority, which he recognizes is hard to do when groups are understaffed. As such, he hopes to find solutions to HM’s pipeline issues—how to fill the hospitalist positions that will be needed in the future.
“I’ve been blessed in my situation [at my institution] to have an administration that’s really supportive of hospital medicine,” he says. “Our administration really gets the value equation, and we as hospitalists do, too. But as I travel around the country, I don’t always see that.”