Andrew Auerbach, MD, MPH, SFHM, and Vineet Arora, MD, MPP, MHM, recently were elected to the new member class of American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) for 2017. Members must have “accomplished meritorious, original, creative, and independent investigations in the clinical or allied sciences of medicine and enjoy an unimpeachable moral standing in the medical profession.”
Dr. Auerbach and Dr. Arora are just the third and fourth hospitalists to become ASCI members. Dr. Auerbach is the professor of medicine in residence and director of the research division of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Aurora is associate professor of medicine, assistant dean for scholarship and discovery, and director of graduate medical education’s clinical learning environment innovation at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Vineet Arora
Both honorees serve as members of the Journal of Hospital Medicine’s editorial board.
Dr. Andrew D. Auerbach
Mark V. Williams, MD, FACP, MHM, director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Health Services Research (CHSR), recently presented at the International Conference of Hospital Medicine held in Taiwan.
Dr. Mark V. Williams
Dr. Williams’s presentation centered on the evolution of hospital medicine and the role hospitalists might play in the future. He was invited to speak by Ming-Chin Yang, DPH, the associate dean of National Taiwan University’s College of Public Health, and practicing Taiwanese hospitalist Nin-Chieh Hsu, MD.
Dr. Williams, director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Health Services Research, spoke recently at the International Conference of Hospital Medicine in Taiwan.
Dr. Williams has been director of the CHSR since 2014, while simultaneously serving as chief of UK HealthCare’s division of hospital medicine. He is the former president of the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Olevia M. Pitts, MD, SFHM, made history at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, becoming the first woman and the first person of color to be named the facility’s chief medical officer. Dr. Pitts assumed her role at the 131-year-old RMC on January 30.
Dr. Olevia M. Pitts
Dr. Pitts previously served as Kansas City/Wichita region senior vice president for IPC Healthcare and medical director at Kindred Traditional Care Hospital. Prior to that, she was lead physician hospitalist with Midwest Hospitalist Specialists in Overland Park, Mo.
Greta Boynton, MD, SFHM, was promoted to the role of associate chief medical officer of Sound Physicians’ northeast region. She was elevated from her position as regional medical director for Sound Physicians, a health care organization that serves as a provider practice in 225 hospitals in 38 states.
Dr. Boynton will be charged with overseeing clinical operation of 13 programs, 120 providers, and a team of regional medical directors. She joined Sound Physicians in 2013 as chief hospitalist and divisional chief at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. She was, previously, chief of hospital medicine for Eastern Connecticut Health Network, Manchester, from 2008-2013.
Business Moves
Sound Physicians, Tacoma, Wash., added to its list of partners on March 1, when Eagle Hospital Medicine Practices, Atlanta, joined the Sound group’s organization. Eagle’s 150 providers in 16 hospitals across the United States raises Sound’s resume to more than 2,500 providers.
Eagle will continue to run its own Locum Connections and Telemedicine divisions.
The Society of Hospital Medicine’s Center for Quality Improvement recently was recognized and honored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for its patient-safety partnership with CMS. The two entities have maintained a relationship since August 2016.
SHM’s Center for QI has participated in weekly CMS webinars to generate strategies intended to limit opioid use, including SHM’s pilot RADEO – Reducing Adverse Drug Events Related to Opioids – program. In January 2017, CMS contacted SHM to provide best practices for patients receiving opioids and better use data to monitor those patients.
University of Iowa Health Care, Iowa City, and Van Buren County Hospital, Keosauqua, Iowa, have created a partnership, allowing patients at VBCH access to UI hospitalists through a telemedicine connection. The relationship will allow VBCH patients to remain at their local hospital – located 90 minutes from Iowa City – while getting care and treatment advice from UI hospitalists through videoconferencing and a shared electronic health record.
With their VBCH provider bedside, patients meet face-to–virtual face with the UI hospitalist during twice-daily virtual rounding.
Unity Medical Center, Manchester, Tenn., recently partnered with physician-owned and -operated Concord Medical Group, Knoxville, Tenn., to provide hospitalist services at its facility in Manchester. Unity now will have hospitalists on duty 24 hours per day thanks to the relationship with Concord, a hospital management and staffing specialist group.