HCPro.com: Hospitalist Management Advisor

This monthly newsletter offers the latest and greatest in hospitalist management strategies and techniques. You'll learn directly from other successful hospitalist programs what works and what doesn't. You'll also receive tips and information on the topics that matter most to your professional success.

April 1, 2008 (Volume 4, Issue 4)	view entire issue

Keep your program and physicians viable amidst rapid growth
In 1998, there were approximately 2,000 hospitalists employed in North American hospitals. The Society of Hospital Medicine says that number has grown tenfold in just 10 years and will reach about 30,000 by 2010. The profession is growing exponentially, and the role of hospitalists in many organizations is expanding in concert with that growth. To further establish the importance of hospital medicine and advance the profession, hospitalists must continue to pave inroads within their respective organizations, in both direct care and nondirect care endeavors, says Eric Siegal, MD, regional medical director of Cogent Healthcare in Brentwood, TN.

Steps to define your hospitalist program's contribution
The hospitalist program is the clinical staff's exciting new toy-fresh, inventive, and promising. But from the C-suite point of view, administrators may consider the program costly and unproven. That means experienced and inexperienced hospitalist leaders alike face the challenge of proving their program's worth to an administration that isn't necessarily informed of the work staff members do in the hospital.

Increase quality by tweaking existing practices, relationships
When the Michigan Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) asked hospitals across the state to examine their one-day admissions, Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo, realized that there had to be a way to reduce the number of one-day inpatient stays and ensure, when they did happen, that they were medically necessary. Because the project focused on Medicare patients, the 426-bed hospital turned to the hospitalist program to examine the hospital's existing practices and determine what improvements could be made in the future. "Hospitalists attend to greater than 75% of the Medicare population in the hospital," says Marilyn Barnum, RN, utilization management coordinator at Borgess Medical Center.

Creative solutions and familiar faces boost hospitalist program launch-and keep it running
In rural communities, hiring qualified physicians can be a difficult task for hospitals. But hospital staffing issues in less populated parts of the country don't affect just the hospital-they affect all healthcare providers in the area. When Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, NC, an 86-bed acute care facility located in the mountains and 35 minutes from the next closest hospital, experienced recruiting problems for the first time a few years ago, the administration knew they had to make a change.

Other recently-published articles from Hospitalist Management Advisor:

Succeed with protected time

Experts say quality surveys flawed

Quality improvement is a team sport

The pros and cons of geographic rounds

Rapid rise of surgical hospitalists

Program value boils down to implementation

ED-to-inpatient transfers are flawed with safety gaps

Develop a smarter training program

Create partnership for successful selection

Diversity of duties and environment satisfies physicians

Technology and hospitalists: A complex relationship

Document growth plans for long-term stability

Preparing for P4P now a primary role for hospitalists

Streamline the welcome orientation process

Improve patient discharge with low-cost strategies for hospitalist-PCP communication

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