Wow, the last 2 years have just flown by! I can’t believe it’s already time to launch the Society of Hospital Medicine State of Hospital Medicine survey again! Right now is the season for you to roll up your sleeves and get to work helping SHM develop the nation’s definitive resource on the current state of hospital medicine practice.
Leslie Flores
I’m really excited about this year’s survey. SHM’s Practice Analysis Committee has redesigned it to eliminate some out-of-date or little-used questions and to add a few new, more relevant questions. Even more exciting, we have a new survey platform that should massively improve your experience of submitting data for the survey and also make the back-end data tabulation and analysis much quicker and more accurate. Multisite groups will now have two options for submitting data – a redesigned, more user-friendly Excel tool, or a new pathway to submit data in the reporting platform by replicating responses.
In addition, our new survey platform should help us produce the final report a little more quickly and improve its usability.
New-for-2020 survey topics will include:
- Expanded information on nurse practitioner/physician assistant roles
- Diversity in hospital medicine physician leadership
- Specific questions for hospital medicine groups (HMGs) serving children that will better capture unique attributes of these hospital medicine practices
Why participate?
I can’t emphasize enough that each and every survey submission matters a lot. The State of Hospital Medicine report claims to be the authoritative resource for information about the specialty of hospital medicine. But the report can’t fulfill this claim if the underlying data is skimpy because people were too busy, couldn’t be bothered to participate, or if participation is not broadly representative of the amazing diversity of hospital medicine practices out there.
Your participation will help ensure that you are contributing to a robust hospital medicine database, and that your own group’s information is represented in the survey results. By doing so you will be helping to ensure hospital medicine’s place as perhaps the crucial specialty for U.S. health care in the coming decade.
In addition, participants will receive free access to the survey results, so there’s a direct benefit to you and your HMG as well.
How can you participate?
Here’s what you need to know:
1. The survey opens on Jan.6, 2020, and closes on Feb. 14, 2020.
2. You can find general information about the survey at this link: https://www.hospitalmedicine.org/practice-management/shms-state-of-hospital-medicine/, and register to participate by using this link: https://www.hospitalmedicine.org/practice-management/shms-state-of-hospital-medicine/sohm-survey/.
3. To participate, you’ll want to collect the following general types of information for your hospital medicine group:
- Basic group descriptive information (for example, types of patients seen, number of hospitals covered, teaching status, etc.)
- Scope of clinical services
- Nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the HMG
- Full-time equivalent (FTE) information
- Information about the physician leader(s)
- Staffing/scheduling arrangements, including backup plans, paid time off, unfilled positions, predominant scheduling pattern, night coverage arrangements, dedicated admitters, unit-based assignments, etc.
- Compensation model (but not specific amounts)
- Value of employee benefits and CME
- Total work relative value units generated by the HMG, and number of times the following CPT codes were billed: 99221, 99222, 99223, 99231, 99232, 99233, 99238, 99239
- Information about financial support provided to the HMG
- Specific questions for academic HMGs, including financial support for nonclinical work, and allocation of FTEs
- Specific questions for HMGs serving children, including the hospital settings served, proportion of part-time staff, FTE definition, and information about board certification in pediatric hospital medicine
I’m hoping that all of you will join me in working to make the 2020 State of Hospital Medicine survey and report the best one yet!
Ms. Flores is a partner at Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants in La Quinta, Calif. She serves on SHM’s Practice Analysis and Annual Meeting Committees, and helps to coordinate SHM’s biannual State of Hospital Medicine survey.
