SHM senior vice president Joe Miller added that the white paper “simply identifies the characteristics and includes a rationale as to why they’re included.” The pilot program, however, will produce “a more enriched tool that you can use in a more directed fashion,” Miller said, “but we felt it was important to get this out right now and get the sense that we’ve identified the right issues.”
SHM CEO Larry Wellikson, MD, SFHM, said the initiative is “bold” and encouraged HM groups that are below standard in any area to step up their games.
“What we’re saying to you and your colleagues is that some of you aren’t performing necessarily at the best level you can,” Dr. Wellikson said. “We want to give you a pathway to get better, because at the end of the day, we’re all in this to deliver the best care we can to our patients. So we recognize where we aren’t perfect, and we try to improve.”
Those seeking practice management advice said they’re always thinking about ways to improve, and being with 3,600 like-minded folks often helps tease out tidbits and strategies to get better.
Sunil Kartham, MD, a hospitalist at Altru Health System in Grand Forks, N.D., said he enjoys hearing HM leaders give advice, whether they’re practice administrators in individual sessions or keynote speakers in large ballrooms.
“When you’re [an] individual physician, you don’t know what to expect in the future,” Dr. Kartham said. “When the leaders come and speak, they lay out a map for you…so you can prepare yourself.”
Preparing for what the future might bring is what drew Angelo Barile, MD, to the meeting. As the head of the hospitalist group at Cleveland Clinic Lorain Family Health and Surgery Center in Lorain, Ohio, he’s always looking for tips on how to improve the practical side of running a 12-FTE group.
“It helps to see how other people do it, and you get a nice framework of how to do it,” said Dr. Barile. “As busy as we are, running the group [and] seeing patients, it’s nice to get away from the pager [and] get away from my administrators and my bosses and say, ‘I want to try to learn something here.’ It is refreshing.”
Education doesn’t end with the meeting’s finale. Dr. Barile traditionally holds a sit-down with his staff as soon as he returns home. The doctors discuss the new ideas Dr. Barile learned and determine as a group what could work in their practice.
Eschenburg, the nascent program manager in Michigan, said she gets the same reaction when she returns from professional meetings.
“It’s certainly something that people are looking for when you get back,” she said. “What did you learn? What can you share with us?”