| Type | Non-profit Organization |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospital Medicine, Hospitalists, Internal Medicine |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Key people | Laurence Wellikson, MD, SFHM (CEO); Joseph Ming Wah Li, MD, SFHM (Current President) |
| Services | Education, Practice Management, Careers, Advocacy, Community |
| Website | www.hospitalmedicine.org |
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is a membership society for hospitalists—physicians who practice the specialty of hospital medicine.
SHM is focused on supporting the hospital medicine industry and individual hospitalists. SHM provides continuing education and industry updates for hospitalists in its monthly publication, The Hospitalist and peer-reviewed journal for hospital medicine, the Journal of Hospital Medicine. In addition to its publications, SHM conducts surveys, prepares written analyses and offers discussion forums that aid in the overall development of the specialty of hospital medicine.
SHM is focused on providing resources, programs and mentoring for quality improvement program for reducing readmissions and hospital acquired diseases whil optimizing transitions of care, glycemic control and overall patient care. An integral role of SHM has been the development of policy and position statements to address the concerns and issues of hospitalists and advocating on behalf of hospitalists before government and regulatory agencies.
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Founded in 1997 by Internists John Nelson, MD, FHM, of Bellevue, Washington and Winthrop Whitcomb, MD, FHM, of Springfield, Massachusetts, SHM was originally known as the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP). SHM’s goals include promoting high-quality care for hospitalized patients; advancing education and research in hospital medicine; enhancing medical teamwork to achieve the best care for hospitalized patients; supporting career paths to attract and retain high quality hospitalists; defining competencies, activities and needs of the hospitalist community; and advocating, proposing, and promoting changes to the healthcare system that lead to better care by hospitalists.
A History of SHM, and in many ways the Hospital Medicine Movement:
The specialty of hospital medicine is made up of a varied constituency with both overlapping and discrete educational needs. These constituencies include academic hospitalists, clinicians-internists,[3] family physicians, pediatricians, hospital medicine group leaders, researchers, clinical educators, nurse practitioners, physician assistants,[4] hospital administrators, and pharmacists.
The Society focuses on lifelong learning for all of these. Its main focus is the enhancement of hospitalists’ knowledge on topics related to specific clinical situations and the fostering of independent learning through traditional and emerging channels. Ongoing hospitalist education should:
Currently, SHM has developed modules as well as created a listing of peer reviewed online accessible CME modules around various topics for healthcare professionals who specialize in hospital medicine.
American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has launched the new Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Hospital medicine is the first area to be awarded focused practice recognition by ABIM, a major milestone for the field.
Research shows that hospitalists reduce the length of stay, treatment costs and improve the overall efficiency of care for hospitalized patients. Among medical societies, SHM is unique in its support of a core group of leaders in hospitals implement change in performance to improve quality of care.
Together with the leaders in healthcare, SHM has designed several quality improvement initiatives to aid hospitalists in their efforts to improve the quality care in key areas including transitions of care, co-management of orthopedic patients, reducing hospital acquired blood clots and optimizing the care of hyperglycemic patients.
In addition to mentoring for quality improvement programs to reduce readmissions and improve the quality of care, SHM provides practice management resources to practicing hospitalists and hospital administration for running successful and sustainable hospitalist programs. According to Dr. Airan-Javia, profiled in the NYT article, “New Breed of Specialist Steps In for Family Doctor” approximately forty percent of a hospitalist’s time is spent treating diseases and caring for patients while the other 60% of her time is spent designing systems to improve workflow and ROI of the hospital.
In May 2011, staff of the Senate Finance Committee issued a report concerning sanofi-aventis efforts to secure favorable comments from medical societies to the Food and Drug Administration. These comments raised safety concerns about generic equivalents to the sanofi-aventis product Lovenox.
The report, initiated as a result of an article by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal, and later covered on ProPublica.org, identified SHM, along with another medical society (National Thrombosis Forum) and a physician (Victor Tapson, MD) as having submitted comments as part of the Citizen Petition Process without disclosing in the letter their financial ties to the pharmaceutical. In the case of SHM, those ties amounted to over $2.0M (since 2007) for a variety of uses that included exhibit space, sponsorship and other outreach.
Sanofi-aventis described this as a key accomplishment for its public relations team. Larry Wellikson, SHM’s CEO said in the Mundy article that "if we were writing the FDA now, we would be very clear about our relationship with any partner, including financial support."