MHM

“No hassle” new manuscript submission process

Many authors have experienced the frustration of formatting a manuscript for submission to a medical journal. The process is time consuming and each journal has different requirements. This means that if you decide to submit your manuscript to one journal and later decide that another journal is a better fit, you may spend an hour (or several hours) reformatting to meet the new journal’s unique requirements.

To allow authors to spend more time on what matters to them, we’re pleased to introduce our “No Hassle” process for initial original research and brief report manuscript submissions to the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Our goal is to eliminate unnecessary and burdensome steps in the manuscript submission process. Thus, we have relaxed formatting requirements for initial manuscript submissions. Any conventional and readable manuscript format and reference style is acceptable.

Tables and figures can be embedded in the main document file or uploaded individually, depending on your preference. Funding and disclosures should be included on the title page but there is no need to submit completed disclosure or copyright forms unless we request a manuscript revision.
 

Timely decisions

We have all experienced the agony of waiting months on end for a journal to make a decision about our manuscript. The review process itself can take many months (or even longer). Furthermore, a manuscript may not be published for many more months (or even longer) following acceptance. At the Journal of Hospital Medicine, we commit to making timely decisions and publishing your accepted manuscript as fast as we can.

We currently reject approximately half of all original research and brief report manuscript submissions without formal peer review. We do this for two reasons. First, we want to ensure that we’re not overburdening our peer reviewers so we only ask them to review manuscripts that we are seriously considering for publication. Second, we want to ensure that we’re being respectful of our authors’ time. If we are unlikely to publish a manuscript based on lower priority scores assigned by me, as editor-in-chief, or other journal editors, we don’t want to subject your manuscript to a lengthy peer review, but would rather return the manuscript to you quickly for timely submission elsewhere.

Here are data that support our timely decision making:

• 1.3 days = our average time from manuscript submission to rejection without formal peer review (median, less than one day).
• 23 days = our average time from manuscript submission to first decision for manuscripts sent for peer review.

We also are working to improve our time to publication. Our goal is to publish accepted manuscripts within 120 days from initial submission to publication, and within 60 days from acceptance to publication.
 

Dissemination

Finally, little public knowledge is gleaned from medical research unless the study is published and widely read. The Journal of Hospital Medicine is at the leading edge of helping authors disseminate their work to a broader audience. Of course, we produce press releases and distribute those to many media outlets in partnership with the Society of Hospital Medicine. We also leverage social media to promote your article through tweets, visual abstracts, and, more recently, comics or graphic medicine abstracts. Some articles are even discussed on #JHMChat, our twitter-based journal club. This work is led by our exceptional Digital Media Editors, Dr. Vineet Arora (@FutureDocs), Dr. Charlie Wray (@WrayCharles), and Dr. Grace Farris (@gracefarris).

In summary, we are committed to making the Journal of Hospital Medicine even more author friendly. To that end, we’re making it easy for authors to submit their work, making timely disposition decisions, and facilitating dissemination of the work we publish.
 

Dr. Shah is chief metrics officer and director of the division of hospital medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

“No hassle” new manuscript submission process

Many authors have experienced the frustration of formatting a manuscript for submission to a medical journal. The process is time consuming and each journal has different requirements. This means that if you decide to submit your manuscript to one journal and later decide that another journal is a better fit, you may spend an hour (or several hours) reformatting to meet the new journal’s unique requirements.

To allow authors to spend more time on what matters to them, we’re pleased to introduce our “No Hassle” process for initial original research and brief report manuscript submissions to the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Our goal is to eliminate unnecessary and burdensome steps in the manuscript submission process. Thus, we have relaxed formatting requirements for initial manuscript submissions. Any conventional and readable manuscript format and reference style is acceptable.

Tables and figures can be embedded in the main document file or uploaded individually, depending on your preference. Funding and disclosures should be included on the title page but there is no need to submit completed disclosure or copyright forms unless we request a manuscript revision.
 

Timely decisions

We have all experienced the agony of waiting months on end for a journal to make a decision about our manuscript. The review process itself can take many months (or even longer). Furthermore, a manuscript may not be published for many more months (or even longer) following acceptance. At the Journal of Hospital Medicine, we commit to making timely decisions and publishing your accepted manuscript as fast as we can.

We currently reject approximately half of all original research and brief report manuscript submissions without formal peer review. We do this for two reasons. First, we want to ensure that we’re not overburdening our peer reviewers so we only ask them to review manuscripts that we are seriously considering for publication. Second, we want to ensure that we’re being respectful of our authors’ time. If we are unlikely to publish a manuscript based on lower priority scores assigned by me, as editor-in-chief, or other journal editors, we don’t want to subject your manuscript to a lengthy peer review, but would rather return the manuscript to you quickly for timely submission elsewhere.

Here are data that support our timely decision making:

• 1.3 days = our average time from manuscript submission to rejection without formal peer review (median, less than one day).
• 23 days = our average time from manuscript submission to first decision for manuscripts sent for peer review.

We also are working to improve our time to publication. Our goal is to publish accepted manuscripts within 120 days from initial submission to publication, and within 60 days from acceptance to publication.
 

Dissemination

Finally, little public knowledge is gleaned from medical research unless the study is published and widely read. The Journal of Hospital Medicine is at the leading edge of helping authors disseminate their work to a broader audience. Of course, we produce press releases and distribute those to many media outlets in partnership with the Society of Hospital Medicine. We also leverage social media to promote your article through tweets, visual abstracts, and, more recently, comics or graphic medicine abstracts. Some articles are even discussed on #JHMChat, our twitter-based journal club. This work is led by our exceptional Digital Media Editors, Dr. Vineet Arora (@FutureDocs), Dr. Charlie Wray (@WrayCharles), and Dr. Grace Farris (@gracefarris).

In summary, we are committed to making the Journal of Hospital Medicine even more author friendly. To that end, we’re making it easy for authors to submit their work, making timely disposition decisions, and facilitating dissemination of the work we publish.
 

Dr. Shah is chief metrics officer and director of the division of hospital medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

“No hassle” new manuscript submission process

Many authors have experienced the frustration of formatting a manuscript for submission to a medical journal. The process is time consuming and each journal has different requirements. This means that if you decide to submit your manuscript to one journal and later decide that another journal is a better fit, you may spend an hour (or several hours) reformatting to meet the new journal’s unique requirements.

To allow authors to spend more time on what matters to them, we’re pleased to introduce our “No Hassle” process for initial original research and brief report manuscript submissions to the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Our goal is to eliminate unnecessary and burdensome steps in the manuscript submission process. Thus, we have relaxed formatting requirements for initial manuscript submissions. Any conventional and readable manuscript format and reference style is acceptable.

Tables and figures can be embedded in the main document file or uploaded individually, depending on your preference. Funding and disclosures should be included on the title page but there is no need to submit completed disclosure or copyright forms unless we request a manuscript revision.
 

Timely decisions

We have all experienced the agony of waiting months on end for a journal to make a decision about our manuscript. The review process itself can take many months (or even longer). Furthermore, a manuscript may not be published for many more months (or even longer) following acceptance. At the Journal of Hospital Medicine, we commit to making timely decisions and publishing your accepted manuscript as fast as we can.

We currently reject approximately half of all original research and brief report manuscript submissions without formal peer review. We do this for two reasons. First, we want to ensure that we’re not overburdening our peer reviewers so we only ask them to review manuscripts that we are seriously considering for publication. Second, we want to ensure that we’re being respectful of our authors’ time. If we are unlikely to publish a manuscript based on lower priority scores assigned by me, as editor-in-chief, or other journal editors, we don’t want to subject your manuscript to a lengthy peer review, but would rather return the manuscript to you quickly for timely submission elsewhere.

Here are data that support our timely decision making:

• 1.3 days = our average time from manuscript submission to rejection without formal peer review (median, less than one day).
• 23 days = our average time from manuscript submission to first decision for manuscripts sent for peer review.

We also are working to improve our time to publication. Our goal is to publish accepted manuscripts within 120 days from initial submission to publication, and within 60 days from acceptance to publication.
 

Dissemination

Finally, little public knowledge is gleaned from medical research unless the study is published and widely read. The Journal of Hospital Medicine is at the leading edge of helping authors disseminate their work to a broader audience. Of course, we produce press releases and distribute those to many media outlets in partnership with the Society of Hospital Medicine. We also leverage social media to promote your article through tweets, visual abstracts, and, more recently, comics or graphic medicine abstracts. Some articles are even discussed on #JHMChat, our twitter-based journal club. This work is led by our exceptional Digital Media Editors, Dr. Vineet Arora (@FutureDocs), Dr. Charlie Wray (@WrayCharles), and Dr. Grace Farris (@gracefarris).

In summary, we are committed to making the Journal of Hospital Medicine even more author friendly. To that end, we’re making it easy for authors to submit their work, making timely disposition decisions, and facilitating dissemination of the work we publish.
 

Dr. Shah is chief metrics officer and director of the division of hospital medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

The word legacy has been synonymous with death to me. When so and so dies, we discuss their legacy. I had a powerful experience that changed my mind on this word that is befitting for this Legacies column.

Seven years ago, I was sitting in a room of powerful women and I was the youngest one there. I wasn’t sure how I got there, but I was glad I did because it changed my life. At the time, I was panicked. The exercise was called “Craft your legacy statement.”

But, this exercise was different. The ask was to “live into your legacy.” Craft a legacy statement in THREE minutes that summarizes what you want your legacy to be … and then decide the three things you need to do now to get there. So, here is my exact legacy 3-minute statement: I am an innovator pushing teaching hospitals to optimize training and patient care delivery through novel technologies and systems science. Clearly, I did not aim high enough. One of the other attendees stated her legacy simply as “Unleash the impossible!” So clearly, I was not able to think big at that moment, but I trudged on.

Next, I had to write the three things I was going to do to enact my legacy today. Things went from bad to worse quickly since I knew this was not going to be easy. The #1 thing had to be something I was going to stop doing because it did not fit with my legacy; #2 was what I was going to start doing to enact this legacy now; and, #3 was something I was going to do to get me closer to what I wanted to be doing. So, my #1, resign my current leadership role that I had had for 8 years; #2, start joining national committees that bridge education and quality; and #3, meet with senior leadership to pitch this new role as a bridging leader, aligning education and quality.

Like all conferences, I went home and forgot what I had done and learned. I settled back into my old life and routines. A few weeks later, a plain looking envelope with awful penmanship showed up at my doorstep addressed to me. It wasn’t until after I opened it and read what was inside that I realized I was the one with horrible penmanship! I completely forgot that I wrote this letter to myself even though they told me it would come and I would forget I wrote it! So, how did I do? Let’s just say if the letter did not arrive, I am not sure where I would be. Fortunately, it did come, and I followed my own orders. Fast forward to present day and I recently stepped into a new role – associate chief medical officer: clinical learning environment – a bridging leader who aligns education and clinical care missions for our health system. Let’s just say again, had that letter not arrived, I am not sure where I would be now.

• Be bold. Years ago, when I was asked by my chair who they should pick to be chief resident, I thought “This must be a trick question – I should definitely tell him why I should be chosen – and then pick the next best person who I want to work with.” Apparently, I was the only person who did that, and that is why my chair chose me. Everyone else picked two other people. So the take-home point here is do not sell yourself short … ever.
• Look for the hidden gateways. A few years ago, I was asked if I wanted to be an institutional leader by the person who currently had that role. I was kind of thrown for a loop, since of course I would not want to appear like I wanted to take his job. I said everything was fine and I felt pretty good about my current positions. It was only a few weeks later that I realized that he was ascertaining my interest in his job since he was leaving. They gave the job to someone else and the word on the street was I was not interested. I totally missed the gate! While it wasn’t necessarily the job I missed out on, it was the opportunity to consider the job because I was afraid. So, don’t miss the gate. It’s the wormhole to a different life that may be the right one for you, but you need to “see it” to seize it.
• Work hard for the money and for the fun. There are many things Gwyneth Paltrow does that I do not agree with, but I will give her credit for one important lesson: she divides her movie roles into those she does for love (for example, The Royal Tenenbaums) and those she does for money (for example, Shallow Hal). It made me realize that even a Hollywood starlet has to do the stuff she may not want to do for the money. So, as a young person, you have to work hard for the money, but ideally it will help you take on a project you love, whatever it is. You’ve won the game when you’re mostly paid to work for the fun ... but that may take some time.
• Always optimize what is best for you personally AND professionally. While I was on maternity leave, the job of my dreams presented itself – or so I thought it did. It was at the intersection of policy, quality, and education, with a national stage, and I would not need to move. But, I knew I could not accept the travel commitment with a young child. While I wondered if I would have regrets, it turns out the right decision professionally also has to work personally. Likewise, there are professional obligations that I take on because it works personally.
• Figure out who your tea house pals are. A few years ago, I was in San Francisco with two close friends having an epic moment about what to do with our lives as adults. We were all on the cusp of changing our directions. Not surprisingly, we could see what the other needed to do, but we could not see it for ourselves. We still text each other sometimes about the need to go back to the Tea House. Sometimes your “tea house pals” are not necessarily those around you every day. They know you, but not everyone in your work place. This “arm’s length” or distance gives them the rational, unbiased perspective to advise you, that you or your colleagues will never have.
• Look for ways to enjoy the journey. Medicine is a very long road. I routinely think about this working with all the trainees and junior faculty I encounter. You can’t be in this solely for the end of the journey. The key is to find the joy in the journey. For me, that has always come from seeking out like-minded fellow travelers to share my highs and lows. While I tweet for many reasons, a big reason is that I take pleasure in watching others on the journey and also sharing my own journey.

Here’s to your journey and living your legacy!

Dr. Arora is associate chief medical officer, clinical learning environment, at University of Chicago Medicine, and assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. You can follow her journey on Twitter.

The word legacy has been synonymous with death to me. When so and so dies, we discuss their legacy. I had a powerful experience that changed my mind on this word that is befitting for this Legacies column.

Seven years ago, I was sitting in a room of powerful women and I was the youngest one there. I wasn’t sure how I got there, but I was glad I did because it changed my life. At the time, I was panicked. The exercise was called “Craft your legacy statement.”

But, this exercise was different. The ask was to “live into your legacy.” Craft a legacy statement in THREE minutes that summarizes what you want your legacy to be … and then decide the three things you need to do now to get there. So, here is my exact legacy 3-minute statement: I am an innovator pushing teaching hospitals to optimize training and patient care delivery through novel technologies and systems science. Clearly, I did not aim high enough. One of the other attendees stated her legacy simply as “Unleash the impossible!” So clearly, I was not able to think big at that moment, but I trudged on.

Next, I had to write the three things I was going to do to enact my legacy today. Things went from bad to worse quickly since I knew this was not going to be easy. The #1 thing had to be something I was going to stop doing because it did not fit with my legacy; #2 was what I was going to start doing to enact this legacy now; and, #3 was something I was going to do to get me closer to what I wanted to be doing. So, my #1, resign my current leadership role that I had had for 8 years; #2, start joining national committees that bridge education and quality; and #3, meet with senior leadership to pitch this new role as a bridging leader, aligning education and quality.

Like all conferences, I went home and forgot what I had done and learned. I settled back into my old life and routines. A few weeks later, a plain looking envelope with awful penmanship showed up at my doorstep addressed to me. It wasn’t until after I opened it and read what was inside that I realized I was the one with horrible penmanship! I completely forgot that I wrote this letter to myself even though they told me it would come and I would forget I wrote it! So, how did I do? Let’s just say if the letter did not arrive, I am not sure where I would be. Fortunately, it did come, and I followed my own orders. Fast forward to present day and I recently stepped into a new role – associate chief medical officer: clinical learning environment – a bridging leader who aligns education and clinical care missions for our health system. Let’s just say again, had that letter not arrived, I am not sure where I would be now.

• Be bold. Years ago, when I was asked by my chair who they should pick to be chief resident, I thought “This must be a trick question – I should definitely tell him why I should be chosen – and then pick the next best person who I want to work with.” Apparently, I was the only person who did that, and that is why my chair chose me. Everyone else picked two other people. So the take-home point here is do not sell yourself short … ever.
• Look for the hidden gateways. A few years ago, I was asked if I wanted to be an institutional leader by the person who currently had that role. I was kind of thrown for a loop, since of course I would not want to appear like I wanted to take his job. I said everything was fine and I felt pretty good about my current positions. It was only a few weeks later that I realized that he was ascertaining my interest in his job since he was leaving. They gave the job to someone else and the word on the street was I was not interested. I totally missed the gate! While it wasn’t necessarily the job I missed out on, it was the opportunity to consider the job because I was afraid. So, don’t miss the gate. It’s the wormhole to a different life that may be the right one for you, but you need to “see it” to seize it.
• Work hard for the money and for the fun. There are many things Gwyneth Paltrow does that I do not agree with, but I will give her credit for one important lesson: she divides her movie roles into those she does for love (for example, The Royal Tenenbaums) and those she does for money (for example, Shallow Hal). It made me realize that even a Hollywood starlet has to do the stuff she may not want to do for the money. So, as a young person, you have to work hard for the money, but ideally it will help you take on a project you love, whatever it is. You’ve won the game when you’re mostly paid to work for the fun ... but that may take some time.
• Always optimize what is best for you personally AND professionally. While I was on maternity leave, the job of my dreams presented itself – or so I thought it did. It was at the intersection of policy, quality, and education, with a national stage, and I would not need to move. But, I knew I could not accept the travel commitment with a young child. While I wondered if I would have regrets, it turns out the right decision professionally also has to work personally. Likewise, there are professional obligations that I take on because it works personally.
• Figure out who your tea house pals are. A few years ago, I was in San Francisco with two close friends having an epic moment about what to do with our lives as adults. We were all on the cusp of changing our directions. Not surprisingly, we could see what the other needed to do, but we could not see it for ourselves. We still text each other sometimes about the need to go back to the Tea House. Sometimes your “tea house pals” are not necessarily those around you every day. They know you, but not everyone in your work place. This “arm’s length” or distance gives them the rational, unbiased perspective to advise you, that you or your colleagues will never have.
• Look for ways to enjoy the journey. Medicine is a very long road. I routinely think about this working with all the trainees and junior faculty I encounter. You can’t be in this solely for the end of the journey. The key is to find the joy in the journey. For me, that has always come from seeking out like-minded fellow travelers to share my highs and lows. While I tweet for many reasons, a big reason is that I take pleasure in watching others on the journey and also sharing my own journey.

Here’s to your journey and living your legacy!

Dr. Arora is associate chief medical officer, clinical learning environment, at University of Chicago Medicine, and assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. You can follow her journey on Twitter.

The word legacy has been synonymous with death to me. When so and so dies, we discuss their legacy. I had a powerful experience that changed my mind on this word that is befitting for this Legacies column.

Seven years ago, I was sitting in a room of powerful women and I was the youngest one there. I wasn’t sure how I got there, but I was glad I did because it changed my life. At the time, I was panicked. The exercise was called “Craft your legacy statement.”

But, this exercise was different. The ask was to “live into your legacy.” Craft a legacy statement in THREE minutes that summarizes what you want your legacy to be … and then decide the three things you need to do now to get there. So, here is my exact legacy 3-minute statement: I am an innovator pushing teaching hospitals to optimize training and patient care delivery through novel technologies and systems science. Clearly, I did not aim high enough. One of the other attendees stated her legacy simply as “Unleash the impossible!” So clearly, I was not able to think big at that moment, but I trudged on.

Next, I had to write the three things I was going to do to enact my legacy today. Things went from bad to worse quickly since I knew this was not going to be easy. The #1 thing had to be something I was going to stop doing because it did not fit with my legacy; #2 was what I was going to start doing to enact this legacy now; and, #3 was something I was going to do to get me closer to what I wanted to be doing. So, my #1, resign my current leadership role that I had had for 8 years; #2, start joining national committees that bridge education and quality; and #3, meet with senior leadership to pitch this new role as a bridging leader, aligning education and quality.

Like all conferences, I went home and forgot what I had done and learned. I settled back into my old life and routines. A few weeks later, a plain looking envelope with awful penmanship showed up at my doorstep addressed to me. It wasn’t until after I opened it and read what was inside that I realized I was the one with horrible penmanship! I completely forgot that I wrote this letter to myself even though they told me it would come and I would forget I wrote it! So, how did I do? Let’s just say if the letter did not arrive, I am not sure where I would be. Fortunately, it did come, and I followed my own orders. Fast forward to present day and I recently stepped into a new role – associate chief medical officer: clinical learning environment – a bridging leader who aligns education and clinical care missions for our health system. Let’s just say again, had that letter not arrived, I am not sure where I would be now.

• Be bold. Years ago, when I was asked by my chair who they should pick to be chief resident, I thought “This must be a trick question – I should definitely tell him why I should be chosen – and then pick the next best person who I want to work with.” Apparently, I was the only person who did that, and that is why my chair chose me. Everyone else picked two other people. So the take-home point here is do not sell yourself short … ever.
• Look for the hidden gateways. A few years ago, I was asked if I wanted to be an institutional leader by the person who currently had that role. I was kind of thrown for a loop, since of course I would not want to appear like I wanted to take his job. I said everything was fine and I felt pretty good about my current positions. It was only a few weeks later that I realized that he was ascertaining my interest in his job since he was leaving. They gave the job to someone else and the word on the street was I was not interested. I totally missed the gate! While it wasn’t necessarily the job I missed out on, it was the opportunity to consider the job because I was afraid. So, don’t miss the gate. It’s the wormhole to a different life that may be the right one for you, but you need to “see it” to seize it.
• Work hard for the money and for the fun. There are many things Gwyneth Paltrow does that I do not agree with, but I will give her credit for one important lesson: she divides her movie roles into those she does for love (for example, The Royal Tenenbaums) and those she does for money (for example, Shallow Hal). It made me realize that even a Hollywood starlet has to do the stuff she may not want to do for the money. So, as a young person, you have to work hard for the money, but ideally it will help you take on a project you love, whatever it is. You’ve won the game when you’re mostly paid to work for the fun ... but that may take some time.
• Always optimize what is best for you personally AND professionally. While I was on maternity leave, the job of my dreams presented itself – or so I thought it did. It was at the intersection of policy, quality, and education, with a national stage, and I would not need to move. But, I knew I could not accept the travel commitment with a young child. While I wondered if I would have regrets, it turns out the right decision professionally also has to work personally. Likewise, there are professional obligations that I take on because it works personally.
• Figure out who your tea house pals are. A few years ago, I was in San Francisco with two close friends having an epic moment about what to do with our lives as adults. We were all on the cusp of changing our directions. Not surprisingly, we could see what the other needed to do, but we could not see it for ourselves. We still text each other sometimes about the need to go back to the Tea House. Sometimes your “tea house pals” are not necessarily those around you every day. They know you, but not everyone in your work place. This “arm’s length” or distance gives them the rational, unbiased perspective to advise you, that you or your colleagues will never have.
• Look for ways to enjoy the journey. Medicine is a very long road. I routinely think about this working with all the trainees and junior faculty I encounter. You can’t be in this solely for the end of the journey. The key is to find the joy in the journey. For me, that has always come from seeking out like-minded fellow travelers to share my highs and lows. While I tweet for many reasons, a big reason is that I take pleasure in watching others on the journey and also sharing my own journey.

Here’s to your journey and living your legacy!

Dr. Arora is associate chief medical officer, clinical learning environment, at University of Chicago Medicine, and assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. You can follow her journey on Twitter.

Residents and junior faculty have frequently asked me how they can attain a position similar to mine, focused on quality and leadership in a health care system. When I was first asked to offer advice on this topic, my response was generally something like, “Heck if I know! I just had a series of lucky accidents to get here!”

Back then, I would recount my career history. I established myself as a clinician educator and associate program director soon after Chief Residency. After that, I would explain, a series of fortunate events and health care trends shaped my career. Evidence-based medicine (EBM), the patient safety movement, a shift to incorporate value (as well as volume) into reimbursement models, and the hospital medicine movement all emerged in interesting and often synergistic ways.

A young SHM organization (then known as NAIP) grew rapidly even while the hospitalist programs I led in Phoenix, then at University of California, San Diego, grew in size and influence. Inevitably, it seemed, I was increasingly involved in quality improvement (QI) efforts, and began to publish and speak about them. Collaborative work with SHM and a number of hospital systems broadened my visibility regionally and nationally. Finally, in 2015, I was recruited away from UC San Diego into a new position, as chief quality officer at UC Davis.

On hearing this history, those seeking my sage advice would look a little confused, and then say something like, “So your advice is that I should get lucky??? Gee, thanks a lot! Really helpful!” (Insert sarcasm here).

The honor of being asked to contribute to the “Legacies” series in The Hospitalist gave me an opportunity to think about this a little differently. No one really wanted to know about how past changes in the health care environment led to my career success. They wanted advice on tools and strategies that will allow them to thrive in an environment of ongoing, disruptive change that is likely only going to accelerate. I now present my upgraded points of advice, intertwined with examples of how SHM positively influenced my career (and could assist yours):
 

Learn how your hospital works. Hospitalists obviously have an inside track on many aspects of hospital operations, but sometimes remain oblivious to the organizational and committee structure, priorities of hospital leadership, and the mechanism for implementing standardized care. Knowing where to go with new ideas, and the process of implementing protocols, will keep you from hitting political land mines and unintentionally encroaching on someone else’s turf, while aligning your efforts with institutional priorities improves the buy-in and resources available to do the work.

Start small, but think big. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and make sure your ideas for change work on a small scale before trying to sell the world on them. On the other hand, think big! The care you and others provide is dependent on systems that go far beyond your immediate control. Policies, protocols, standardized order sets, checklists, and an array of other tools can be leveraged to influence care across an entire health system, and in the SHM Mentored Implementation programs, can impact hundreds of hospitals.

Broaden your skills. Commit to learning new skills that can increase your impact and career diversity. Procedural skills; information technology; and EMR, EBM, research, public health, QI, business, leadership, public speaking, advocacy, and telehealth, can all open up a whole world of possibilities when combined with a medical degree. These skills can move you into areas that keep you engaged and excited to go to work.

Engage in mentor/mentee relationships. As an associate program director and clinician-educator, I had a lot of opportunity to mentor residents and fellows. It is so rewarding to watch the mentee grow in experience and skills, and to eventually see many of them assume leadership and mentoring roles themselves. You don’t have to be in a teaching position to act as a mentor (my experience mentoring hospitalists and others in leadership and quality improvement now far surpasses my experience with house staff).

The mentor often benefits as much as the mentee from this relationship. I have been inspired by their passion and dedication, educated by their ideas and innovation, and frequently find I am learning more from them, than they are from me. I have had great experiences in the SHM Mentored Implementation program in the role of mentee and mentor.
 

Participate in a community. When I first joined NAIP, I was amazed that the giants (Wachter, Nelson, Whitcomb, Holman, Williams, Greeno, Howell, Huddleston, Wellikson, and on and on) were not only approachable, they were warm, friendly, interesting, and extraordinarily welcoming. The ever-expanding and evolving community at SHM continues that tradition and offers a forum to share innovative work, discuss common problems and solutions, contact world experts, or just find an empathetic ear. Working on toolkits and collaborative efforts with this community remains a real highlight of my career, and the source of several lasting friendships. So don’t be shy; step right up; and introduce yourself!

Avoid my past mistakes (this might be a long list). Random things you should try to avoid.

• Tribalism – It is natural to be protective of your hospitalist group, and to focus on the injustices heaped upon you from (insert favorite punching bag here, e.g., ED, orthopedists, cardiologists, nursing staff, evil administration penny pinchers, etc). While some of those injustices might be real, tribalism, defensiveness, and circling the wagons generally only makes things worse. Sit down face to face, learn a little bit about the opposing tribe (both about their work, and about them as people), and see how much more fun and productive work can be.
• Storming out of a meeting with the CMO and CEO, slamming the door, etc. – not productive. Administrative leaders are doing their own juggling act and are generally well intentioned and doing the best they can. Respect that, argue your case, but if things don’t pan out, shake their hand, and live to fight another day.
• Using e-mail (evil-mail) to resolve conflict – And if you’re a young whippersnapper, don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or other social media to address conflict either!
• Forgetting to put patients first – Frame decisions for your group around what best serves your patients, not your doctors. Long term, this gives your group credibility and will serve the hospitalists better as well. SHM does this on a large scale with their advocacy efforts, resulting in more credibility and influence on Capitol Hill.

Make time for friends, family, fitness, fun, and reflection. A sense of humor and an occasional laugh when dealing with ill patients, hospital medicine politics, and the EMR all day provides resilience, as does taking the time to foster self-awareness and insight into your own weaknesses, strengths, and how you react to different stressors. A little bit of exercise and time with family and friends can go a long way towards improving your outlook, work, and life in general, while reducing burnout. Oh yeah, it’s also a good idea to choose a great life partner as well. Thanks Michelle!

Dr. Maynard is chief quality officer, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, Calif.

Residents and junior faculty have frequently asked me how they can attain a position similar to mine, focused on quality and leadership in a health care system. When I was first asked to offer advice on this topic, my response was generally something like, “Heck if I know! I just had a series of lucky accidents to get here!”

Back then, I would recount my career history. I established myself as a clinician educator and associate program director soon after Chief Residency. After that, I would explain, a series of fortunate events and health care trends shaped my career. Evidence-based medicine (EBM), the patient safety movement, a shift to incorporate value (as well as volume) into reimbursement models, and the hospital medicine movement all emerged in interesting and often synergistic ways.

A young SHM organization (then known as NAIP) grew rapidly even while the hospitalist programs I led in Phoenix, then at University of California, San Diego, grew in size and influence. Inevitably, it seemed, I was increasingly involved in quality improvement (QI) efforts, and began to publish and speak about them. Collaborative work with SHM and a number of hospital systems broadened my visibility regionally and nationally. Finally, in 2015, I was recruited away from UC San Diego into a new position, as chief quality officer at UC Davis.

On hearing this history, those seeking my sage advice would look a little confused, and then say something like, “So your advice is that I should get lucky??? Gee, thanks a lot! Really helpful!” (Insert sarcasm here).

The honor of being asked to contribute to the “Legacies” series in The Hospitalist gave me an opportunity to think about this a little differently. No one really wanted to know about how past changes in the health care environment led to my career success. They wanted advice on tools and strategies that will allow them to thrive in an environment of ongoing, disruptive change that is likely only going to accelerate. I now present my upgraded points of advice, intertwined with examples of how SHM positively influenced my career (and could assist yours):
 

Learn how your hospital works. Hospitalists obviously have an inside track on many aspects of hospital operations, but sometimes remain oblivious to the organizational and committee structure, priorities of hospital leadership, and the mechanism for implementing standardized care. Knowing where to go with new ideas, and the process of implementing protocols, will keep you from hitting political land mines and unintentionally encroaching on someone else’s turf, while aligning your efforts with institutional priorities improves the buy-in and resources available to do the work.

Start small, but think big. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and make sure your ideas for change work on a small scale before trying to sell the world on them. On the other hand, think big! The care you and others provide is dependent on systems that go far beyond your immediate control. Policies, protocols, standardized order sets, checklists, and an array of other tools can be leveraged to influence care across an entire health system, and in the SHM Mentored Implementation programs, can impact hundreds of hospitals.

Broaden your skills. Commit to learning new skills that can increase your impact and career diversity. Procedural skills; information technology; and EMR, EBM, research, public health, QI, business, leadership, public speaking, advocacy, and telehealth, can all open up a whole world of possibilities when combined with a medical degree. These skills can move you into areas that keep you engaged and excited to go to work.

Engage in mentor/mentee relationships. As an associate program director and clinician-educator, I had a lot of opportunity to mentor residents and fellows. It is so rewarding to watch the mentee grow in experience and skills, and to eventually see many of them assume leadership and mentoring roles themselves. You don’t have to be in a teaching position to act as a mentor (my experience mentoring hospitalists and others in leadership and quality improvement now far surpasses my experience with house staff).

The mentor often benefits as much as the mentee from this relationship. I have been inspired by their passion and dedication, educated by their ideas and innovation, and frequently find I am learning more from them, than they are from me. I have had great experiences in the SHM Mentored Implementation program in the role of mentee and mentor.
 

Participate in a community. When I first joined NAIP, I was amazed that the giants (Wachter, Nelson, Whitcomb, Holman, Williams, Greeno, Howell, Huddleston, Wellikson, and on and on) were not only approachable, they were warm, friendly, interesting, and extraordinarily welcoming. The ever-expanding and evolving community at SHM continues that tradition and offers a forum to share innovative work, discuss common problems and solutions, contact world experts, or just find an empathetic ear. Working on toolkits and collaborative efforts with this community remains a real highlight of my career, and the source of several lasting friendships. So don’t be shy; step right up; and introduce yourself!

Avoid my past mistakes (this might be a long list). Random things you should try to avoid.

• Tribalism – It is natural to be protective of your hospitalist group, and to focus on the injustices heaped upon you from (insert favorite punching bag here, e.g., ED, orthopedists, cardiologists, nursing staff, evil administration penny pinchers, etc). While some of those injustices might be real, tribalism, defensiveness, and circling the wagons generally only makes things worse. Sit down face to face, learn a little bit about the opposing tribe (both about their work, and about them as people), and see how much more fun and productive work can be.
• Storming out of a meeting with the CMO and CEO, slamming the door, etc. – not productive. Administrative leaders are doing their own juggling act and are generally well intentioned and doing the best they can. Respect that, argue your case, but if things don’t pan out, shake their hand, and live to fight another day.
• Using e-mail (evil-mail) to resolve conflict – And if you’re a young whippersnapper, don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or other social media to address conflict either!
• Forgetting to put patients first – Frame decisions for your group around what best serves your patients, not your doctors. Long term, this gives your group credibility and will serve the hospitalists better as well. SHM does this on a large scale with their advocacy efforts, resulting in more credibility and influence on Capitol Hill.

Make time for friends, family, fitness, fun, and reflection. A sense of humor and an occasional laugh when dealing with ill patients, hospital medicine politics, and the EMR all day provides resilience, as does taking the time to foster self-awareness and insight into your own weaknesses, strengths, and how you react to different stressors. A little bit of exercise and time with family and friends can go a long way towards improving your outlook, work, and life in general, while reducing burnout. Oh yeah, it’s also a good idea to choose a great life partner as well. Thanks Michelle!

Dr. Maynard is chief quality officer, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, Calif.

Residents and junior faculty have frequently asked me how they can attain a position similar to mine, focused on quality and leadership in a health care system. When I was first asked to offer advice on this topic, my response was generally something like, “Heck if I know! I just had a series of lucky accidents to get here!”

Back then, I would recount my career history. I established myself as a clinician educator and associate program director soon after Chief Residency. After that, I would explain, a series of fortunate events and health care trends shaped my career. Evidence-based medicine (EBM), the patient safety movement, a shift to incorporate value (as well as volume) into reimbursement models, and the hospital medicine movement all emerged in interesting and often synergistic ways.

A young SHM organization (then known as NAIP) grew rapidly even while the hospitalist programs I led in Phoenix, then at University of California, San Diego, grew in size and influence. Inevitably, it seemed, I was increasingly involved in quality improvement (QI) efforts, and began to publish and speak about them. Collaborative work with SHM and a number of hospital systems broadened my visibility regionally and nationally. Finally, in 2015, I was recruited away from UC San Diego into a new position, as chief quality officer at UC Davis.

On hearing this history, those seeking my sage advice would look a little confused, and then say something like, “So your advice is that I should get lucky??? Gee, thanks a lot! Really helpful!” (Insert sarcasm here).

The honor of being asked to contribute to the “Legacies” series in The Hospitalist gave me an opportunity to think about this a little differently. No one really wanted to know about how past changes in the health care environment led to my career success. They wanted advice on tools and strategies that will allow them to thrive in an environment of ongoing, disruptive change that is likely only going to accelerate. I now present my upgraded points of advice, intertwined with examples of how SHM positively influenced my career (and could assist yours):
 

Learn how your hospital works. Hospitalists obviously have an inside track on many aspects of hospital operations, but sometimes remain oblivious to the organizational and committee structure, priorities of hospital leadership, and the mechanism for implementing standardized care. Knowing where to go with new ideas, and the process of implementing protocols, will keep you from hitting political land mines and unintentionally encroaching on someone else’s turf, while aligning your efforts with institutional priorities improves the buy-in and resources available to do the work.

Start small, but think big. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and make sure your ideas for change work on a small scale before trying to sell the world on them. On the other hand, think big! The care you and others provide is dependent on systems that go far beyond your immediate control. Policies, protocols, standardized order sets, checklists, and an array of other tools can be leveraged to influence care across an entire health system, and in the SHM Mentored Implementation programs, can impact hundreds of hospitals.

Broaden your skills. Commit to learning new skills that can increase your impact and career diversity. Procedural skills; information technology; and EMR, EBM, research, public health, QI, business, leadership, public speaking, advocacy, and telehealth, can all open up a whole world of possibilities when combined with a medical degree. These skills can move you into areas that keep you engaged and excited to go to work.

Engage in mentor/mentee relationships. As an associate program director and clinician-educator, I had a lot of opportunity to mentor residents and fellows. It is so rewarding to watch the mentee grow in experience and skills, and to eventually see many of them assume leadership and mentoring roles themselves. You don’t have to be in a teaching position to act as a mentor (my experience mentoring hospitalists and others in leadership and quality improvement now far surpasses my experience with house staff).

The mentor often benefits as much as the mentee from this relationship. I have been inspired by their passion and dedication, educated by their ideas and innovation, and frequently find I am learning more from them, than they are from me. I have had great experiences in the SHM Mentored Implementation program in the role of mentee and mentor.
 

Participate in a community. When I first joined NAIP, I was amazed that the giants (Wachter, Nelson, Whitcomb, Holman, Williams, Greeno, Howell, Huddleston, Wellikson, and on and on) were not only approachable, they were warm, friendly, interesting, and extraordinarily welcoming. The ever-expanding and evolving community at SHM continues that tradition and offers a forum to share innovative work, discuss common problems and solutions, contact world experts, or just find an empathetic ear. Working on toolkits and collaborative efforts with this community remains a real highlight of my career, and the source of several lasting friendships. So don’t be shy; step right up; and introduce yourself!

Avoid my past mistakes (this might be a long list). Random things you should try to avoid.

• Tribalism – It is natural to be protective of your hospitalist group, and to focus on the injustices heaped upon you from (insert favorite punching bag here, e.g., ED, orthopedists, cardiologists, nursing staff, evil administration penny pinchers, etc). While some of those injustices might be real, tribalism, defensiveness, and circling the wagons generally only makes things worse. Sit down face to face, learn a little bit about the opposing tribe (both about their work, and about them as people), and see how much more fun and productive work can be.
• Storming out of a meeting with the CMO and CEO, slamming the door, etc. – not productive. Administrative leaders are doing their own juggling act and are generally well intentioned and doing the best they can. Respect that, argue your case, but if things don’t pan out, shake their hand, and live to fight another day.
• Using e-mail (evil-mail) to resolve conflict – And if you’re a young whippersnapper, don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or other social media to address conflict either!
• Forgetting to put patients first – Frame decisions for your group around what best serves your patients, not your doctors. Long term, this gives your group credibility and will serve the hospitalists better as well. SHM does this on a large scale with their advocacy efforts, resulting in more credibility and influence on Capitol Hill.

Make time for friends, family, fitness, fun, and reflection. A sense of humor and an occasional laugh when dealing with ill patients, hospital medicine politics, and the EMR all day provides resilience, as does taking the time to foster self-awareness and insight into your own weaknesses, strengths, and how you react to different stressors. A little bit of exercise and time with family and friends can go a long way towards improving your outlook, work, and life in general, while reducing burnout. Oh yeah, it’s also a good idea to choose a great life partner as well. Thanks Michelle!

Dr. Maynard is chief quality officer, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, Calif.

I have to admit that I am not sure I am a legacy in hospital medicine, and the term legacy throws me off a bit. I came to medical school after working at McKinsey & Co. consulting, and I chose pediatrics because of my love of working with children and families, as well as a vague notion that I wanted to work on “system” issues, and therefore, more generalist-type training seemed applicable.

I met Chris Landrigan, MD, MPH, and Vinny Chiang, MD, and learned what a hospitalist was, as an intern in 2002. We had a research elective and I was able to publish a couple of papers in Pediatrics on pediatric hospital medicine with Chris and Raj Srivastava, MD, MPH. In 2004, I went to my first Society of Hospital Medicine meeting and met Larry Wellikson, MD, MHM, and others. From there, I went to the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, with Ron Keren, MD, MPH, and others, and along with faculty from the Cincinnati Children’s in hospital medicine.

In 2007, I applied for a White House Fellowship and told my wife that I didn’t think there was a chance that I would get it, so we should keep building our new home in Cincinnati. We were both surprised when I was selected. I served Michael Leavitt, the then-Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, as his White House fellow during the Bush administration, and then served as his chief medical officer. Exposure to health policy and leadership at that level was career shaping. Cincinnati Children’s was searching for a leader for the conversion of pediatric hospital medicine into a full division in 2009. So I returned to Cincinnati to take on leading pediatric hospital medicine, and a role leading quality measurement and improvement efforts for the entire health system. I loved the work and thought I would remain in that role, and our family would be in Cincinnati for a long time. Best laid plans …

In early 2011, Don Berwick, MD, who was then the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services called and asked whether I “would come talk with him in D.C.” That talk quickly became a series of interviews, and he offered me the opportunity to be chief medical officer of CMS. He said “this platform is like no other to drive change.” He was right. I have been fortunate to have a few step-change opportunities in my life, and that was one.

On my first day at CMS, I looked around the table of senior executives reporting to me and realized they had more than 200 years of CMS experience. I was a bit scared. Together, we led the implementation of Hospital Value-Based Purchasing, the Compare websites, and numerous quality measurement and improvement programs. Partnership for Patients works on patient safety and was associated with preventing more than 3 million infections and adverse events, over 125,000 lives saved, and more than $26 billion in savings.

In early 2013, I was asked to lead the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI). The goal was to launch new payment and service delivery models to improve quality and lower costs. We launched Accountable Care Organizations, Bundled Payment programs, primary care medical homes, state-based innovation, and so much more. Medicare went from zero dollars in alternative payment models, where providers are accountable for quality and total cost of care, to more than 30% of Medicare payments, representing over $200 billion through agreements with more than 200,000 providers in these alternative payment models. It was the biggest shift in U.S. history in how CMS paid for care. Later, I became principal deputy administrator and acting administrator of CMS, leading an agency that spends over $1 trillion per year, or more than $2.5 billion per day and insures over 130 million Americans. We also improved from being bottom quintile in employee engagement and satisfaction across the federal government to No. 2.

I had assumed that, after working at CMS, I would return to a hospital/health system leadership role. But then, a recruiter called about the CEO role at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. It is one of the largest not-for-profit health plans in the country and insures most of the people in North Carolina, many for most of their lives. I met a 75-year-old woman the other day that we have insured every day of her life. I am almost a year into the role and it is a mission-driven organization that drives positive change. I love it so far.

We are going to partner with providers, so that more than half of our payments will be in advanced alternative payment models. No payer in the United States has done that yet. This allows us to innovate and decrease friction in the system (e.g., turn off prior authorization) and be jointly accountable with providers for quality and total cost of care. We insure people through the ACA [Affordable Care Act], commercial, and Medicare markets, and are competing to serve Medicaid as well. We have invested more than $50 million to address social determinants of health across the state. We are making major investments in primary care, and mental and behavioral health. Our goal is to be a Model Blue – or a Model of Health Transformation for our state and nation – and achieve better health outcomes, lower costs, and best-in-class experience for all people we serve. I have learned that no physician leads a health plan of this size, and apparently, no practicing physician has ever led a health plan of this size.

What are some lessons learned over my career? I have had five criteria for all my career decisions: 1) family; 2) impact – better care and outcomes, lower costs, and exceptional experience for populations of patients; 3) people – mentors and colleagues; 4) learning; and 5) joy in work. If someone gives you a chance to lead people in your career as a physician, jump at the chance. We do a relatively poor job of providing this type of opportunity to those early in their careers in medicine, and learning how to manage people and money allows you to progress as a leader and manager.

Don’t listen to the people who say “you must do X before Y” or “you must take this path.” They are usually wrong. Take chances. I applied for many roles for which I was a long shot, and I didn’t always succeed. That’s life and learning. Hospital medicine is a great career. I worked in the hospital on a recent weekend and was able to help families through everything from palliative care decisions and new diagnoses, to recovering from illness. It is an honor to serve and help families in their time of need. Hospitalists have been – and should continue to be – primary drivers of the shift in our health system to value-based care.

As I look back on my career (and I hope I am only halfway done), I could not have predicted more than 90% of it. I was blessed with many opportunities, mentors, and teachers along the way. I try to pass this on by mentoring and teaching others. How did my career happen? I am not sure, but it has been a fun ride! And hopefully I have helped improve the health system some, along the way.
 

Dr. Conway is president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. He is a hospitalist and former deputy administrator for innovation and quality at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

I have to admit that I am not sure I am a legacy in hospital medicine, and the term legacy throws me off a bit. I came to medical school after working at McKinsey & Co. consulting, and I chose pediatrics because of my love of working with children and families, as well as a vague notion that I wanted to work on “system” issues, and therefore, more generalist-type training seemed applicable.

I met Chris Landrigan, MD, MPH, and Vinny Chiang, MD, and learned what a hospitalist was, as an intern in 2002. We had a research elective and I was able to publish a couple of papers in Pediatrics on pediatric hospital medicine with Chris and Raj Srivastava, MD, MPH. In 2004, I went to my first Society of Hospital Medicine meeting and met Larry Wellikson, MD, MHM, and others. From there, I went to the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, with Ron Keren, MD, MPH, and others, and along with faculty from the Cincinnati Children’s in hospital medicine.

In 2007, I applied for a White House Fellowship and told my wife that I didn’t think there was a chance that I would get it, so we should keep building our new home in Cincinnati. We were both surprised when I was selected. I served Michael Leavitt, the then-Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, as his White House fellow during the Bush administration, and then served as his chief medical officer. Exposure to health policy and leadership at that level was career shaping. Cincinnati Children’s was searching for a leader for the conversion of pediatric hospital medicine into a full division in 2009. So I returned to Cincinnati to take on leading pediatric hospital medicine, and a role leading quality measurement and improvement efforts for the entire health system. I loved the work and thought I would remain in that role, and our family would be in Cincinnati for a long time. Best laid plans …

In early 2011, Don Berwick, MD, who was then the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services called and asked whether I “would come talk with him in D.C.” That talk quickly became a series of interviews, and he offered me the opportunity to be chief medical officer of CMS. He said “this platform is like no other to drive change.” He was right. I have been fortunate to have a few step-change opportunities in my life, and that was one.

On my first day at CMS, I looked around the table of senior executives reporting to me and realized they had more than 200 years of CMS experience. I was a bit scared. Together, we led the implementation of Hospital Value-Based Purchasing, the Compare websites, and numerous quality measurement and improvement programs. Partnership for Patients works on patient safety and was associated with preventing more than 3 million infections and adverse events, over 125,000 lives saved, and more than $26 billion in savings.

In early 2013, I was asked to lead the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI). The goal was to launch new payment and service delivery models to improve quality and lower costs. We launched Accountable Care Organizations, Bundled Payment programs, primary care medical homes, state-based innovation, and so much more. Medicare went from zero dollars in alternative payment models, where providers are accountable for quality and total cost of care, to more than 30% of Medicare payments, representing over $200 billion through agreements with more than 200,000 providers in these alternative payment models. It was the biggest shift in U.S. history in how CMS paid for care. Later, I became principal deputy administrator and acting administrator of CMS, leading an agency that spends over $1 trillion per year, or more than $2.5 billion per day and insures over 130 million Americans. We also improved from being bottom quintile in employee engagement and satisfaction across the federal government to No. 2.

I had assumed that, after working at CMS, I would return to a hospital/health system leadership role. But then, a recruiter called about the CEO role at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. It is one of the largest not-for-profit health plans in the country and insures most of the people in North Carolina, many for most of their lives. I met a 75-year-old woman the other day that we have insured every day of her life. I am almost a year into the role and it is a mission-driven organization that drives positive change. I love it so far.

We are going to partner with providers, so that more than half of our payments will be in advanced alternative payment models. No payer in the United States has done that yet. This allows us to innovate and decrease friction in the system (e.g., turn off prior authorization) and be jointly accountable with providers for quality and total cost of care. We insure people through the ACA [Affordable Care Act], commercial, and Medicare markets, and are competing to serve Medicaid as well. We have invested more than $50 million to address social determinants of health across the state. We are making major investments in primary care, and mental and behavioral health. Our goal is to be a Model Blue – or a Model of Health Transformation for our state and nation – and achieve better health outcomes, lower costs, and best-in-class experience for all people we serve. I have learned that no physician leads a health plan of this size, and apparently, no practicing physician has ever led a health plan of this size.

What are some lessons learned over my career? I have had five criteria for all my career decisions: 1) family; 2) impact – better care and outcomes, lower costs, and exceptional experience for populations of patients; 3) people – mentors and colleagues; 4) learning; and 5) joy in work. If someone gives you a chance to lead people in your career as a physician, jump at the chance. We do a relatively poor job of providing this type of opportunity to those early in their careers in medicine, and learning how to manage people and money allows you to progress as a leader and manager.

Don’t listen to the people who say “you must do X before Y” or “you must take this path.” They are usually wrong. Take chances. I applied for many roles for which I was a long shot, and I didn’t always succeed. That’s life and learning. Hospital medicine is a great career. I worked in the hospital on a recent weekend and was able to help families through everything from palliative care decisions and new diagnoses, to recovering from illness. It is an honor to serve and help families in their time of need. Hospitalists have been – and should continue to be – primary drivers of the shift in our health system to value-based care.

As I look back on my career (and I hope I am only halfway done), I could not have predicted more than 90% of it. I was blessed with many opportunities, mentors, and teachers along the way. I try to pass this on by mentoring and teaching others. How did my career happen? I am not sure, but it has been a fun ride! And hopefully I have helped improve the health system some, along the way.
 

Dr. Conway is president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. He is a hospitalist and former deputy administrator for innovation and quality at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

I have to admit that I am not sure I am a legacy in hospital medicine, and the term legacy throws me off a bit. I came to medical school after working at McKinsey & Co. consulting, and I chose pediatrics because of my love of working with children and families, as well as a vague notion that I wanted to work on “system” issues, and therefore, more generalist-type training seemed applicable.

I met Chris Landrigan, MD, MPH, and Vinny Chiang, MD, and learned what a hospitalist was, as an intern in 2002. We had a research elective and I was able to publish a couple of papers in Pediatrics on pediatric hospital medicine with Chris and Raj Srivastava, MD, MPH. In 2004, I went to my first Society of Hospital Medicine meeting and met Larry Wellikson, MD, MHM, and others. From there, I went to the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, with Ron Keren, MD, MPH, and others, and along with faculty from the Cincinnati Children’s in hospital medicine.

In 2007, I applied for a White House Fellowship and told my wife that I didn’t think there was a chance that I would get it, so we should keep building our new home in Cincinnati. We were both surprised when I was selected. I served Michael Leavitt, the then-Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, as his White House fellow during the Bush administration, and then served as his chief medical officer. Exposure to health policy and leadership at that level was career shaping. Cincinnati Children’s was searching for a leader for the conversion of pediatric hospital medicine into a full division in 2009. So I returned to Cincinnati to take on leading pediatric hospital medicine, and a role leading quality measurement and improvement efforts for the entire health system. I loved the work and thought I would remain in that role, and our family would be in Cincinnati for a long time. Best laid plans …

In early 2011, Don Berwick, MD, who was then the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services called and asked whether I “would come talk with him in D.C.” That talk quickly became a series of interviews, and he offered me the opportunity to be chief medical officer of CMS. He said “this platform is like no other to drive change.” He was right. I have been fortunate to have a few step-change opportunities in my life, and that was one.

On my first day at CMS, I looked around the table of senior executives reporting to me and realized they had more than 200 years of CMS experience. I was a bit scared. Together, we led the implementation of Hospital Value-Based Purchasing, the Compare websites, and numerous quality measurement and improvement programs. Partnership for Patients works on patient safety and was associated with preventing more than 3 million infections and adverse events, over 125,000 lives saved, and more than $26 billion in savings.

In early 2013, I was asked to lead the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI). The goal was to launch new payment and service delivery models to improve quality and lower costs. We launched Accountable Care Organizations, Bundled Payment programs, primary care medical homes, state-based innovation, and so much more. Medicare went from zero dollars in alternative payment models, where providers are accountable for quality and total cost of care, to more than 30% of Medicare payments, representing over $200 billion through agreements with more than 200,000 providers in these alternative payment models. It was the biggest shift in U.S. history in how CMS paid for care. Later, I became principal deputy administrator and acting administrator of CMS, leading an agency that spends over $1 trillion per year, or more than $2.5 billion per day and insures over 130 million Americans. We also improved from being bottom quintile in employee engagement and satisfaction across the federal government to No. 2.

I had assumed that, after working at CMS, I would return to a hospital/health system leadership role. But then, a recruiter called about the CEO role at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. It is one of the largest not-for-profit health plans in the country and insures most of the people in North Carolina, many for most of their lives. I met a 75-year-old woman the other day that we have insured every day of her life. I am almost a year into the role and it is a mission-driven organization that drives positive change. I love it so far.

We are going to partner with providers, so that more than half of our payments will be in advanced alternative payment models. No payer in the United States has done that yet. This allows us to innovate and decrease friction in the system (e.g., turn off prior authorization) and be jointly accountable with providers for quality and total cost of care. We insure people through the ACA [Affordable Care Act], commercial, and Medicare markets, and are competing to serve Medicaid as well. We have invested more than $50 million to address social determinants of health across the state. We are making major investments in primary care, and mental and behavioral health. Our goal is to be a Model Blue – or a Model of Health Transformation for our state and nation – and achieve better health outcomes, lower costs, and best-in-class experience for all people we serve. I have learned that no physician leads a health plan of this size, and apparently, no practicing physician has ever led a health plan of this size.

What are some lessons learned over my career? I have had five criteria for all my career decisions: 1) family; 2) impact – better care and outcomes, lower costs, and exceptional experience for populations of patients; 3) people – mentors and colleagues; 4) learning; and 5) joy in work. If someone gives you a chance to lead people in your career as a physician, jump at the chance. We do a relatively poor job of providing this type of opportunity to those early in their careers in medicine, and learning how to manage people and money allows you to progress as a leader and manager.

Don’t listen to the people who say “you must do X before Y” or “you must take this path.” They are usually wrong. Take chances. I applied for many roles for which I was a long shot, and I didn’t always succeed. That’s life and learning. Hospital medicine is a great career. I worked in the hospital on a recent weekend and was able to help families through everything from palliative care decisions and new diagnoses, to recovering from illness. It is an honor to serve and help families in their time of need. Hospitalists have been – and should continue to be – primary drivers of the shift in our health system to value-based care.

As I look back on my career (and I hope I am only halfway done), I could not have predicted more than 90% of it. I was blessed with many opportunities, mentors, and teachers along the way. I try to pass this on by mentoring and teaching others. How did my career happen? I am not sure, but it has been a fun ride! And hopefully I have helped improve the health system some, along the way.
 

Dr. Conway is president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. He is a hospitalist and former deputy administrator for innovation and quality at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

This fall I attended the 2018 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Academy, held in Vancouver. Once again, this conference sold out weeks ahead of time, and 300 hospitalists took time out of their busy schedules for learning and fun. There have been about 18 Leadership Academies over the years, with approximately 3,000 total participants, but this one may have been the best to date.

Why was it so good? Here are my top four reasons that Leadership Academy 2018 was the best ever:

Setting: Vancouver is just beautiful. My family has a strong maritime background, and I am a water person with saltwater in my veins. My inner sailor was overjoyed with the hotel’s views of False Creek and Vancouver Harbor, and I loved the mix of yachts and working boats. I even saw a seaplane! The hotel was a great match for the 300 hospitalists who traveled to the JW Marriott for 4 days of learning and relaxing. It was the perfect blend, whether for work or play; the hotel and city did not disappoint.

Networking: What’s more fun than getting to know 300 like-minded, leadership-oriented hospitalists for a few days? I am always energized by seeing old friends and making new ones. I really enjoy hearing about the professional adventures hospitalists at all career points are going through. Plus, I get really good advice on my own career! I also appreciate that a number of hospital medicine leaders (and even giants) come to SHM’s Leadership Academy. Over half of the SHM Board of Directors were there, as were a number of current and previous SHM presidents (Mark Williams, Jeff Wiese, Burke Kealey, Bob Harrington, Nasim Afsar, Rusty Holman, Ron Greeno, Chris Frost, and John Nelson), as well as Larry Wellikson, the CEO who has led our society through its many successes. All of these hospitalist leaders are there, having fun and networking, alongside everyone else.

Faculty: The faculty for all four courses (yes, Leadership Academy junkies, we’ve added a fourth course!) are absolutely phenomenal. I think the faculty are just the right blend of expert hospitalists (Jeff Glasheen, Rusty Holman, Jeff Wiese, Mark Williams, John Nelson) and national experts outside of hospital medicine. For example, Lenny Marcus of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, brings his experience coaching the Department of Defense, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and many others to the Influential Management and Mastering Teamwork courses. Lenny’s experience working with national leaders through disasters like the Boston Marathon bombing, Hurricane Katrina, and the Ebola outbreak make for more than riveting stories; there are real, tangible lessons for hospitalist leaders trying to improve clinical care. Nancy Spector is a pediatrician, nationally recognized for her work in mentoring, and is the executive director of Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine. We have been fortunate to have her join the Academies, and Nancy successfully led the first group of hospitalists through the launch of SHM’s fourth leadership course, which I will describe in more detail below.

High energy & continued growth: There continues to be an enormous amount of energy around the Leadership Academy. The Vancouver courses sold out months ahead of the actual meeting! Hospitalists across the country continue to take on leadership roles and have told us that they value the skills they have learned from the courses.
 

Hospitalist leaders want more

In addition to the current 4-day courses (Strategic Essentials, Influential Management, and Mastering Teamwork), hospitalists are looking for a course that continues skill building once they return home.

That’s why SHM has developed a fourth Leadership Academy course. This course, called the Capstone Course, was launched in Vancouver and consists of 2 days of on-site skill development and team building (during the first 2 days of the traditional Leadership Academy) and 6 months of a longitudinal learning collaborative. The six-month learning collaborative component consists of a learning “pod” of five or six fellow hospitalists and monthly virtual meetings around crucial leadership topics. They are facilitated by an experienced Leadership Academy facilitator.

Dr. Spector is the lead faculty; her expertise made the Capstone launch a huge success. She will work with SHM and the Capstone participants throughout the entire 6 months to ensure the Capstone course is as high-quality as the previous three Academy courses.

If you haven’t been, I invite you to attend our next Leadership Academy. Over the years, despite being course director, I have learned many take-home skills from colleagues and leaders in the field that I use often. Just to name a few:

• Flexing my communications style: Tim Keogh’s lecture opened my eyes to the fact that not everyone is a data-driven introvert. I now know that some people need a social warm up, while others just want the facts, and that there are “huggers and shakers.” (In summary, it’s fine to shake hands with a hugger, but be wary of hugging a shaker.)
• I send birthday emails after I heard Jeff Wiese’s talk.
• Lenny Marcus taught me to be aware when I am “in the basement” emotionally. I now know to wait to send emails or confront others until I can get out of the basement.

And that’s just scratching the surface!

In closing, the Vancouver Leadership Academy was fantastic. Good friends, great professional development, a setting that was amazing, and an Academy that remains relevant and dynamic to our specialty. I can’t wait to see how the 2019 Leadership Academy shapes up for its debut in Nashville. My inner sailor may have to give way to my inner musician! I hope to see you and 300 of my closest friends there.

Learn more about SHM’s Leadership Academy at shmleadershipacademy.org.
 

Dr. Howell is a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and chief of the division of hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He is also chief operating officer at the Society of Hospital Medicine and course director of the SHM Leadership Academy.

This fall I attended the 2018 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Academy, held in Vancouver. Once again, this conference sold out weeks ahead of time, and 300 hospitalists took time out of their busy schedules for learning and fun. There have been about 18 Leadership Academies over the years, with approximately 3,000 total participants, but this one may have been the best to date.

Why was it so good? Here are my top four reasons that Leadership Academy 2018 was the best ever:

Setting: Vancouver is just beautiful. My family has a strong maritime background, and I am a water person with saltwater in my veins. My inner sailor was overjoyed with the hotel’s views of False Creek and Vancouver Harbor, and I loved the mix of yachts and working boats. I even saw a seaplane! The hotel was a great match for the 300 hospitalists who traveled to the JW Marriott for 4 days of learning and relaxing. It was the perfect blend, whether for work or play; the hotel and city did not disappoint.

Networking: What’s more fun than getting to know 300 like-minded, leadership-oriented hospitalists for a few days? I am always energized by seeing old friends and making new ones. I really enjoy hearing about the professional adventures hospitalists at all career points are going through. Plus, I get really good advice on my own career! I also appreciate that a number of hospital medicine leaders (and even giants) come to SHM’s Leadership Academy. Over half of the SHM Board of Directors were there, as were a number of current and previous SHM presidents (Mark Williams, Jeff Wiese, Burke Kealey, Bob Harrington, Nasim Afsar, Rusty Holman, Ron Greeno, Chris Frost, and John Nelson), as well as Larry Wellikson, the CEO who has led our society through its many successes. All of these hospitalist leaders are there, having fun and networking, alongside everyone else.

Faculty: The faculty for all four courses (yes, Leadership Academy junkies, we’ve added a fourth course!) are absolutely phenomenal. I think the faculty are just the right blend of expert hospitalists (Jeff Glasheen, Rusty Holman, Jeff Wiese, Mark Williams, John Nelson) and national experts outside of hospital medicine. For example, Lenny Marcus of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, brings his experience coaching the Department of Defense, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and many others to the Influential Management and Mastering Teamwork courses. Lenny’s experience working with national leaders through disasters like the Boston Marathon bombing, Hurricane Katrina, and the Ebola outbreak make for more than riveting stories; there are real, tangible lessons for hospitalist leaders trying to improve clinical care. Nancy Spector is a pediatrician, nationally recognized for her work in mentoring, and is the executive director of Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine. We have been fortunate to have her join the Academies, and Nancy successfully led the first group of hospitalists through the launch of SHM’s fourth leadership course, which I will describe in more detail below.

High energy & continued growth: There continues to be an enormous amount of energy around the Leadership Academy. The Vancouver courses sold out months ahead of the actual meeting! Hospitalists across the country continue to take on leadership roles and have told us that they value the skills they have learned from the courses.
 

Hospitalist leaders want more

In addition to the current 4-day courses (Strategic Essentials, Influential Management, and Mastering Teamwork), hospitalists are looking for a course that continues skill building once they return home.

That’s why SHM has developed a fourth Leadership Academy course. This course, called the Capstone Course, was launched in Vancouver and consists of 2 days of on-site skill development and team building (during the first 2 days of the traditional Leadership Academy) and 6 months of a longitudinal learning collaborative. The six-month learning collaborative component consists of a learning “pod” of five or six fellow hospitalists and monthly virtual meetings around crucial leadership topics. They are facilitated by an experienced Leadership Academy facilitator.

Dr. Spector is the lead faculty; her expertise made the Capstone launch a huge success. She will work with SHM and the Capstone participants throughout the entire 6 months to ensure the Capstone course is as high-quality as the previous three Academy courses.

If you haven’t been, I invite you to attend our next Leadership Academy. Over the years, despite being course director, I have learned many take-home skills from colleagues and leaders in the field that I use often. Just to name a few:

• Flexing my communications style: Tim Keogh’s lecture opened my eyes to the fact that not everyone is a data-driven introvert. I now know that some people need a social warm up, while others just want the facts, and that there are “huggers and shakers.” (In summary, it’s fine to shake hands with a hugger, but be wary of hugging a shaker.)
• I send birthday emails after I heard Jeff Wiese’s talk.
• Lenny Marcus taught me to be aware when I am “in the basement” emotionally. I now know to wait to send emails or confront others until I can get out of the basement.

And that’s just scratching the surface!

In closing, the Vancouver Leadership Academy was fantastic. Good friends, great professional development, a setting that was amazing, and an Academy that remains relevant and dynamic to our specialty. I can’t wait to see how the 2019 Leadership Academy shapes up for its debut in Nashville. My inner sailor may have to give way to my inner musician! I hope to see you and 300 of my closest friends there.

Learn more about SHM’s Leadership Academy at shmleadershipacademy.org.
 

Dr. Howell is a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and chief of the division of hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He is also chief operating officer at the Society of Hospital Medicine and course director of the SHM Leadership Academy.

This fall I attended the 2018 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Academy, held in Vancouver. Once again, this conference sold out weeks ahead of time, and 300 hospitalists took time out of their busy schedules for learning and fun. There have been about 18 Leadership Academies over the years, with approximately 3,000 total participants, but this one may have been the best to date.

Why was it so good? Here are my top four reasons that Leadership Academy 2018 was the best ever:

Setting: Vancouver is just beautiful. My family has a strong maritime background, and I am a water person with saltwater in my veins. My inner sailor was overjoyed with the hotel’s views of False Creek and Vancouver Harbor, and I loved the mix of yachts and working boats. I even saw a seaplane! The hotel was a great match for the 300 hospitalists who traveled to the JW Marriott for 4 days of learning and relaxing. It was the perfect blend, whether for work or play; the hotel and city did not disappoint.

Networking: What’s more fun than getting to know 300 like-minded, leadership-oriented hospitalists for a few days? I am always energized by seeing old friends and making new ones. I really enjoy hearing about the professional adventures hospitalists at all career points are going through. Plus, I get really good advice on my own career! I also appreciate that a number of hospital medicine leaders (and even giants) come to SHM’s Leadership Academy. Over half of the SHM Board of Directors were there, as were a number of current and previous SHM presidents (Mark Williams, Jeff Wiese, Burke Kealey, Bob Harrington, Nasim Afsar, Rusty Holman, Ron Greeno, Chris Frost, and John Nelson), as well as Larry Wellikson, the CEO who has led our society through its many successes. All of these hospitalist leaders are there, having fun and networking, alongside everyone else.

Faculty: The faculty for all four courses (yes, Leadership Academy junkies, we’ve added a fourth course!) are absolutely phenomenal. I think the faculty are just the right blend of expert hospitalists (Jeff Glasheen, Rusty Holman, Jeff Wiese, Mark Williams, John Nelson) and national experts outside of hospital medicine. For example, Lenny Marcus of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, brings his experience coaching the Department of Defense, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and many others to the Influential Management and Mastering Teamwork courses. Lenny’s experience working with national leaders through disasters like the Boston Marathon bombing, Hurricane Katrina, and the Ebola outbreak make for more than riveting stories; there are real, tangible lessons for hospitalist leaders trying to improve clinical care. Nancy Spector is a pediatrician, nationally recognized for her work in mentoring, and is the executive director of Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine. We have been fortunate to have her join the Academies, and Nancy successfully led the first group of hospitalists through the launch of SHM’s fourth leadership course, which I will describe in more detail below.

High energy & continued growth: There continues to be an enormous amount of energy around the Leadership Academy. The Vancouver courses sold out months ahead of the actual meeting! Hospitalists across the country continue to take on leadership roles and have told us that they value the skills they have learned from the courses.
 

Hospitalist leaders want more

In addition to the current 4-day courses (Strategic Essentials, Influential Management, and Mastering Teamwork), hospitalists are looking for a course that continues skill building once they return home.

That’s why SHM has developed a fourth Leadership Academy course. This course, called the Capstone Course, was launched in Vancouver and consists of 2 days of on-site skill development and team building (during the first 2 days of the traditional Leadership Academy) and 6 months of a longitudinal learning collaborative. The six-month learning collaborative component consists of a learning “pod” of five or six fellow hospitalists and monthly virtual meetings around crucial leadership topics. They are facilitated by an experienced Leadership Academy facilitator.

Dr. Spector is the lead faculty; her expertise made the Capstone launch a huge success. She will work with SHM and the Capstone participants throughout the entire 6 months to ensure the Capstone course is as high-quality as the previous three Academy courses.

If you haven’t been, I invite you to attend our next Leadership Academy. Over the years, despite being course director, I have learned many take-home skills from colleagues and leaders in the field that I use often. Just to name a few:

• Flexing my communications style: Tim Keogh’s lecture opened my eyes to the fact that not everyone is a data-driven introvert. I now know that some people need a social warm up, while others just want the facts, and that there are “huggers and shakers.” (In summary, it’s fine to shake hands with a hugger, but be wary of hugging a shaker.)
• I send birthday emails after I heard Jeff Wiese’s talk.
• Lenny Marcus taught me to be aware when I am “in the basement” emotionally. I now know to wait to send emails or confront others until I can get out of the basement.

And that’s just scratching the surface!

In closing, the Vancouver Leadership Academy was fantastic. Good friends, great professional development, a setting that was amazing, and an Academy that remains relevant and dynamic to our specialty. I can’t wait to see how the 2019 Leadership Academy shapes up for its debut in Nashville. My inner sailor may have to give way to my inner musician! I hope to see you and 300 of my closest friends there.

Learn more about SHM’s Leadership Academy at shmleadershipacademy.org.
 

Dr. Howell is a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and chief of the division of hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He is also chief operating officer at the Society of Hospital Medicine and course director of the SHM Leadership Academy.

Burnout is influenced by a seemingly infinite combination of variables. An optimal schedule alone isn’t the key to preventing it, but maybe a good schedule can reduce your risk you’ll suffer from it.

Smart people who have spent years as hospitalists, working multiple different schedules, have formed a variety of conclusions about which work schedules best reduce the risk of burnout. There’s no meaningful research to settle the question, so everyone will have to reach their own conclusions, as I’ve done here.
 

Scheduling flexibility: Often overlooked?

Someone who typically works the same number of consecutive day shifts, each of which is the same duration, might suffer from the monotony and inexorable predictability. Schedules that vary the number of consecutive day shifts, the intensity or length of shifts, and the number of consecutive days off might result in lower rates of burnout. This is especially likely to be the case if each provider has some flexibility to control how her schedule varies over time.

shutteratakan/Thinkstock

Personal time goes on the calendar first

Those who have a regularly repeating work schedule tend to work hard arranging such important things as family vacations on days the schedule dictates. In other words, the first thing that goes on the personal calendar are the weeks of work; they’re “X-ed” out and personal events filled into the remaining days.

That’s fine for many personal activities, but it means the hospitalist might tend to set a pretty high bar for activities that are worth negotiating alterations to the usual schedule. For example, you might want to see U2 but decide to skip their concert in your town since it falls in the middle of your regularly scheduled week of work. Maybe that’s not a big deal (Isn’t U2 overplayed and out of date anyway?), but an accumulation of small sacrifices like this might increase resentment of work.

It’s possible to organize a hospitalist group schedule in which each provider’s personally requested days off, like the U2 concert, go on the work calendar first, and the clinical schedule is built around them. It can get pretty time consuming to manage, but might be a worthwhile investment to reduce burnout risk.

A paradox: Fewer shifts could increase burnout risk

I’m convinced many hospitalists make the mistake of seeking to maximize their number of days off with the idea that it will be good for happiness, career longevity, burnout, etc. While having more days off provides more time for nonwork activities and rest/recovery from work, it usually means the average workday is busier and more stressful to maintain expected levels of productivity. The net effect for some seems to be increased burnout.

Consider someone who has been working 182 hospitalist shifts and generating a total of 2,114 billed encounters annually (both are the most recent national medians available from surveys). This hospitalist successfully negotiates a reduction to 161 annual shifts. This would probably feel good to anyone at first, but keep in mind that it means the average number of daily encounters to maintain median annual productivity would increase 13% (from 11.6 to 13.1 in this example). That is, each day of work just got 13% busier.

I regularly encounter career hospitalists with more than 10 years of experience who say they still appreciate – or even are addicted to – having lots of days off. But the worked days often are so busy they don’t know how long they can keep doing it. It is possible some of them might be happier and less burned out if they work more shifts annually, and the average shift is meaningfully less busy.

The “right” number of shifts depends on a combination of personal and economic factors. Rather than focusing almost exclusively on the number of shifts worked annually, it may be better to think about the total amount of annual work measured in billed encounters, or wRVUs [work relative value units], and how it is titrated out on the calendar.

Other scheduling attributes and burnout

I think it’s really important to ensure the hospitalist group always has the target number of providers working each day. Many groups have experienced staffing deficits for so long that they’ve essentially given up on this goal, and staffing levels vary day to day. This means each provider has uncertainty regarding how often he will be scheduled on days with fewer than the targeted numbers of providers working.

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com.

Burnout is influenced by a seemingly infinite combination of variables. An optimal schedule alone isn’t the key to preventing it, but maybe a good schedule can reduce your risk you’ll suffer from it.

Smart people who have spent years as hospitalists, working multiple different schedules, have formed a variety of conclusions about which work schedules best reduce the risk of burnout. There’s no meaningful research to settle the question, so everyone will have to reach their own conclusions, as I’ve done here.
 

Scheduling flexibility: Often overlooked?

Someone who typically works the same number of consecutive day shifts, each of which is the same duration, might suffer from the monotony and inexorable predictability. Schedules that vary the number of consecutive day shifts, the intensity or length of shifts, and the number of consecutive days off might result in lower rates of burnout. This is especially likely to be the case if each provider has some flexibility to control how her schedule varies over time.

shutteratakan/Thinkstock

Personal time goes on the calendar first

Those who have a regularly repeating work schedule tend to work hard arranging such important things as family vacations on days the schedule dictates. In other words, the first thing that goes on the personal calendar are the weeks of work; they’re “X-ed” out and personal events filled into the remaining days.

That’s fine for many personal activities, but it means the hospitalist might tend to set a pretty high bar for activities that are worth negotiating alterations to the usual schedule. For example, you might want to see U2 but decide to skip their concert in your town since it falls in the middle of your regularly scheduled week of work. Maybe that’s not a big deal (Isn’t U2 overplayed and out of date anyway?), but an accumulation of small sacrifices like this might increase resentment of work.

It’s possible to organize a hospitalist group schedule in which each provider’s personally requested days off, like the U2 concert, go on the work calendar first, and the clinical schedule is built around them. It can get pretty time consuming to manage, but might be a worthwhile investment to reduce burnout risk.

A paradox: Fewer shifts could increase burnout risk

I’m convinced many hospitalists make the mistake of seeking to maximize their number of days off with the idea that it will be good for happiness, career longevity, burnout, etc. While having more days off provides more time for nonwork activities and rest/recovery from work, it usually means the average workday is busier and more stressful to maintain expected levels of productivity. The net effect for some seems to be increased burnout.

Consider someone who has been working 182 hospitalist shifts and generating a total of 2,114 billed encounters annually (both are the most recent national medians available from surveys). This hospitalist successfully negotiates a reduction to 161 annual shifts. This would probably feel good to anyone at first, but keep in mind that it means the average number of daily encounters to maintain median annual productivity would increase 13% (from 11.6 to 13.1 in this example). That is, each day of work just got 13% busier.

I regularly encounter career hospitalists with more than 10 years of experience who say they still appreciate – or even are addicted to – having lots of days off. But the worked days often are so busy they don’t know how long they can keep doing it. It is possible some of them might be happier and less burned out if they work more shifts annually, and the average shift is meaningfully less busy.

The “right” number of shifts depends on a combination of personal and economic factors. Rather than focusing almost exclusively on the number of shifts worked annually, it may be better to think about the total amount of annual work measured in billed encounters, or wRVUs [work relative value units], and how it is titrated out on the calendar.

Other scheduling attributes and burnout

I think it’s really important to ensure the hospitalist group always has the target number of providers working each day. Many groups have experienced staffing deficits for so long that they’ve essentially given up on this goal, and staffing levels vary day to day. This means each provider has uncertainty regarding how often he will be scheduled on days with fewer than the targeted numbers of providers working.

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com.

Burnout is influenced by a seemingly infinite combination of variables. An optimal schedule alone isn’t the key to preventing it, but maybe a good schedule can reduce your risk you’ll suffer from it.

Smart people who have spent years as hospitalists, working multiple different schedules, have formed a variety of conclusions about which work schedules best reduce the risk of burnout. There’s no meaningful research to settle the question, so everyone will have to reach their own conclusions, as I’ve done here.
 

Scheduling flexibility: Often overlooked?

Someone who typically works the same number of consecutive day shifts, each of which is the same duration, might suffer from the monotony and inexorable predictability. Schedules that vary the number of consecutive day shifts, the intensity or length of shifts, and the number of consecutive days off might result in lower rates of burnout. This is especially likely to be the case if each provider has some flexibility to control how her schedule varies over time.

shutteratakan/Thinkstock

Personal time goes on the calendar first

Those who have a regularly repeating work schedule tend to work hard arranging such important things as family vacations on days the schedule dictates. In other words, the first thing that goes on the personal calendar are the weeks of work; they’re “X-ed” out and personal events filled into the remaining days.

That’s fine for many personal activities, but it means the hospitalist might tend to set a pretty high bar for activities that are worth negotiating alterations to the usual schedule. For example, you might want to see U2 but decide to skip their concert in your town since it falls in the middle of your regularly scheduled week of work. Maybe that’s not a big deal (Isn’t U2 overplayed and out of date anyway?), but an accumulation of small sacrifices like this might increase resentment of work.

It’s possible to organize a hospitalist group schedule in which each provider’s personally requested days off, like the U2 concert, go on the work calendar first, and the clinical schedule is built around them. It can get pretty time consuming to manage, but might be a worthwhile investment to reduce burnout risk.

A paradox: Fewer shifts could increase burnout risk

I’m convinced many hospitalists make the mistake of seeking to maximize their number of days off with the idea that it will be good for happiness, career longevity, burnout, etc. While having more days off provides more time for nonwork activities and rest/recovery from work, it usually means the average workday is busier and more stressful to maintain expected levels of productivity. The net effect for some seems to be increased burnout.

Consider someone who has been working 182 hospitalist shifts and generating a total of 2,114 billed encounters annually (both are the most recent national medians available from surveys). This hospitalist successfully negotiates a reduction to 161 annual shifts. This would probably feel good to anyone at first, but keep in mind that it means the average number of daily encounters to maintain median annual productivity would increase 13% (from 11.6 to 13.1 in this example). That is, each day of work just got 13% busier.

I regularly encounter career hospitalists with more than 10 years of experience who say they still appreciate – or even are addicted to – having lots of days off. But the worked days often are so busy they don’t know how long they can keep doing it. It is possible some of them might be happier and less burned out if they work more shifts annually, and the average shift is meaningfully less busy.

The “right” number of shifts depends on a combination of personal and economic factors. Rather than focusing almost exclusively on the number of shifts worked annually, it may be better to think about the total amount of annual work measured in billed encounters, or wRVUs [work relative value units], and how it is titrated out on the calendar.

Other scheduling attributes and burnout

I think it’s really important to ensure the hospitalist group always has the target number of providers working each day. Many groups have experienced staffing deficits for so long that they’ve essentially given up on this goal, and staffing levels vary day to day. This means each provider has uncertainty regarding how often he will be scheduled on days with fewer than the targeted numbers of providers working.

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com.

Editor’s note: The Hospitalist is pleased to introduce a new recurring column: “The Legacies of Hospital Medicine.” This will be a recurring feature submitted by some of the best and brightest hospitalists in the field who have helped shape our specialty into what it is today. It will be a series of articles that will reflect on hospital medicine and it’s evolution over time from a variety of unique and innovative perspectives. We hope you enjoy this series, and we welcome any feedback as it evolves!

Hearkening back to my early time as a hospital-based physician, I recall the pleasure of waking every day and feeling like I belonged to an exclusive club. I felt passion for my work, along with a tiny cohort of similarly situated docs. We lacked a kinship with other medical organizations, however. We had no union of our own and were invisible upstarts.

That transformed with time.

Like most hospitalists, my ticket in began after some sleuthing and calls to Win Whitcomb, MD, and John Nelson, MD – still trusted friends today. They will make their marks in future columns, but as I am the inaugural contributor, let me be the first to state they both had a sixth sense steering our group of disciples. They became the obvious chiefs, along with Bob Wachter, MD, and took the lead in articulating what we aspired to be. Sounds saccharine now, but it did not then.

Twenty years out, hospital medicine still feels like a figurative case of Moore’s law. I cannot keep up with the strange faces at annual meetings and membership size, the throng of published articles (I used to pride myself on knowing all the hospitalist studies – no longer), and the lengthy list of initiatives and Society of Hospital Medicine resources on hand.

Without question, SHM has been the most rewarding part of my professional life. Hospital medicine mates sustain and keep me in good stead and have done so since training. Their insights teach me more than journals or any day on the job could impart and have given me a learning windfall for the cost of a song.

I initiated my hospitalist path as a 20-something tenderfoot, but from my interactions with colleagues both liberal and conservative, urban and rural, corporate and academic, and specialist and generalist, I developed into a seasoned craftsman.

Countless times I strode into an SHM activity thinking one way, and through the intellect and conviction of my peers, I got smart. Working in the same setting for most of my career, unchallenged, I could have assimilated a sclerotic worldview, but my hospital medicine colleagues would have none of that – kudos and thanks to them for it.

I could cite endless anecdotes – and they are swirling as I write. Crucial positions discussed and adopted, roads taken and those not, specialties angered and appeased, wonderful meals had, and on and on. They are and were the building blocks of a journey – and a joyful one.

As truly notable memories go, however, for me, there is only one.

By far, watching and absorbing the lessons of how an organization develops – goes from zero to sixty – has been a master class in enterprise and execution.

A PGY4 sees a president, CEO, board, ad hoc committees, staff, big budgets, and capital outlays make things happen and assumes it just is. But an operational charter with an instruction manual in-tow didn’t just drop from on high; that’s not how things go down. The right personnel selections, value choices (“SHM is a big tent” was not an accident), affiliate alliances, assessment of risks, and strategies pursued occurred for a reason; keen minds had the vision to set the board right.

The privilege of participating in the SHM project has been an education no grant or scholarship could equal. To say I had a tiny role in all of that is just reward.

Through SHM I have made lifelong friends, advanced my perspective and development as a healer, acquired a nifty board certification (one of 1,400 with a Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine), gained a mastership, and yes, met President Obama.

As odysseys go, how many docs can make such lofty claims?

Dr. Flansbaum works for Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., in both the divisions of hospital medicine and population health. He began working as a hospitalist in 1996 and is a founding member of the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: The Hospitalist is pleased to introduce a new recurring column: “The Legacies of Hospital Medicine.” This will be a recurring feature submitted by some of the best and brightest hospitalists in the field who have helped shape our specialty into what it is today. It will be a series of articles that will reflect on hospital medicine and it’s evolution over time from a variety of unique and innovative perspectives. We hope you enjoy this series, and we welcome any feedback as it evolves!

Hearkening back to my early time as a hospital-based physician, I recall the pleasure of waking every day and feeling like I belonged to an exclusive club. I felt passion for my work, along with a tiny cohort of similarly situated docs. We lacked a kinship with other medical organizations, however. We had no union of our own and were invisible upstarts.

That transformed with time.

Like most hospitalists, my ticket in began after some sleuthing and calls to Win Whitcomb, MD, and John Nelson, MD – still trusted friends today. They will make their marks in future columns, but as I am the inaugural contributor, let me be the first to state they both had a sixth sense steering our group of disciples. They became the obvious chiefs, along with Bob Wachter, MD, and took the lead in articulating what we aspired to be. Sounds saccharine now, but it did not then.

Twenty years out, hospital medicine still feels like a figurative case of Moore’s law. I cannot keep up with the strange faces at annual meetings and membership size, the throng of published articles (I used to pride myself on knowing all the hospitalist studies – no longer), and the lengthy list of initiatives and Society of Hospital Medicine resources on hand.

Without question, SHM has been the most rewarding part of my professional life. Hospital medicine mates sustain and keep me in good stead and have done so since training. Their insights teach me more than journals or any day on the job could impart and have given me a learning windfall for the cost of a song.

I initiated my hospitalist path as a 20-something tenderfoot, but from my interactions with colleagues both liberal and conservative, urban and rural, corporate and academic, and specialist and generalist, I developed into a seasoned craftsman.

Countless times I strode into an SHM activity thinking one way, and through the intellect and conviction of my peers, I got smart. Working in the same setting for most of my career, unchallenged, I could have assimilated a sclerotic worldview, but my hospital medicine colleagues would have none of that – kudos and thanks to them for it.

I could cite endless anecdotes – and they are swirling as I write. Crucial positions discussed and adopted, roads taken and those not, specialties angered and appeased, wonderful meals had, and on and on. They are and were the building blocks of a journey – and a joyful one.

As truly notable memories go, however, for me, there is only one.

By far, watching and absorbing the lessons of how an organization develops – goes from zero to sixty – has been a master class in enterprise and execution.

A PGY4 sees a president, CEO, board, ad hoc committees, staff, big budgets, and capital outlays make things happen and assumes it just is. But an operational charter with an instruction manual in-tow didn’t just drop from on high; that’s not how things go down. The right personnel selections, value choices (“SHM is a big tent” was not an accident), affiliate alliances, assessment of risks, and strategies pursued occurred for a reason; keen minds had the vision to set the board right.

The privilege of participating in the SHM project has been an education no grant or scholarship could equal. To say I had a tiny role in all of that is just reward.

Through SHM I have made lifelong friends, advanced my perspective and development as a healer, acquired a nifty board certification (one of 1,400 with a Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine), gained a mastership, and yes, met President Obama.

As odysseys go, how many docs can make such lofty claims?

Dr. Flansbaum works for Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., in both the divisions of hospital medicine and population health. He began working as a hospitalist in 1996 and is a founding member of the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: The Hospitalist is pleased to introduce a new recurring column: “The Legacies of Hospital Medicine.” This will be a recurring feature submitted by some of the best and brightest hospitalists in the field who have helped shape our specialty into what it is today. It will be a series of articles that will reflect on hospital medicine and it’s evolution over time from a variety of unique and innovative perspectives. We hope you enjoy this series, and we welcome any feedback as it evolves!

Hearkening back to my early time as a hospital-based physician, I recall the pleasure of waking every day and feeling like I belonged to an exclusive club. I felt passion for my work, along with a tiny cohort of similarly situated docs. We lacked a kinship with other medical organizations, however. We had no union of our own and were invisible upstarts.

That transformed with time.

Like most hospitalists, my ticket in began after some sleuthing and calls to Win Whitcomb, MD, and John Nelson, MD – still trusted friends today. They will make their marks in future columns, but as I am the inaugural contributor, let me be the first to state they both had a sixth sense steering our group of disciples. They became the obvious chiefs, along with Bob Wachter, MD, and took the lead in articulating what we aspired to be. Sounds saccharine now, but it did not then.

Twenty years out, hospital medicine still feels like a figurative case of Moore’s law. I cannot keep up with the strange faces at annual meetings and membership size, the throng of published articles (I used to pride myself on knowing all the hospitalist studies – no longer), and the lengthy list of initiatives and Society of Hospital Medicine resources on hand.

Without question, SHM has been the most rewarding part of my professional life. Hospital medicine mates sustain and keep me in good stead and have done so since training. Their insights teach me more than journals or any day on the job could impart and have given me a learning windfall for the cost of a song.

I initiated my hospitalist path as a 20-something tenderfoot, but from my interactions with colleagues both liberal and conservative, urban and rural, corporate and academic, and specialist and generalist, I developed into a seasoned craftsman.

Countless times I strode into an SHM activity thinking one way, and through the intellect and conviction of my peers, I got smart. Working in the same setting for most of my career, unchallenged, I could have assimilated a sclerotic worldview, but my hospital medicine colleagues would have none of that – kudos and thanks to them for it.

I could cite endless anecdotes – and they are swirling as I write. Crucial positions discussed and adopted, roads taken and those not, specialties angered and appeased, wonderful meals had, and on and on. They are and were the building blocks of a journey – and a joyful one.

As truly notable memories go, however, for me, there is only one.

By far, watching and absorbing the lessons of how an organization develops – goes from zero to sixty – has been a master class in enterprise and execution.

A PGY4 sees a president, CEO, board, ad hoc committees, staff, big budgets, and capital outlays make things happen and assumes it just is. But an operational charter with an instruction manual in-tow didn’t just drop from on high; that’s not how things go down. The right personnel selections, value choices (“SHM is a big tent” was not an accident), affiliate alliances, assessment of risks, and strategies pursued occurred for a reason; keen minds had the vision to set the board right.

The privilege of participating in the SHM project has been an education no grant or scholarship could equal. To say I had a tiny role in all of that is just reward.

Through SHM I have made lifelong friends, advanced my perspective and development as a healer, acquired a nifty board certification (one of 1,400 with a Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine), gained a mastership, and yes, met President Obama.

As odysseys go, how many docs can make such lofty claims?

Dr. Flansbaum works for Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., in both the divisions of hospital medicine and population health. He began working as a hospitalist in 1996 and is a founding member of the Society of Hospital Medicine.

I wrote about physician burnout and well-being in the July 2017 version of this column, and am still thinking a great deal about those issues. In the past 6 months, I can’t identify anything that strikes me as a real breakthrough in addressing these issues. However, the ever-increasing attention and resources directed at physician burnout and wellness, on both a local and national level, strike me as reason for cautious optimism.

A chief wellness officer

In summer 2017, Stanford University created a new physician executive role called chief wellness officer (CWO). As far as I am aware, this is the first such position connected with a hospital or medical school. It will be interesting to see if other organizations create similar positions, although I suspect that in places where it is explicitly recognized as a priority, responsibility for this work will be one of the many duties of a chief medical officer or other such executive, and not a position devoted solely to wellness. Interestingly, an Internet search revealed that some non–health care businesses have executive positions with that title, though the role seems focused more on physical health – as in exercise and smoking cessation – than emotional well-being and burnout.

According to a statement on the Stanford Medicine website, the new CWO will work with colleagues to continue “building on its innovative WellMD Center , which was established in 2016. The center has engaged more than 200 physicians through programs focusing on peer support, stress reduction, and ways to cultivate compassion and resilience, as well as a literature and a dinner series in which physicians explore the challenges and rewards of being a doctor. The center also aims to relieve some of the burden on physicians by improving efficiency and simplifying workplace systems, such as electronic medical records.”

A national conference

Over the last 2 or 3 years many, if not most, physician conferences, including the SHM annual conference, have added some content around physician burnout and well-being. But for the first time I’m aware of, an entire conference, the American Conference on Physician Health, addressed these topics in San Francisco in October 2017, and attracted 425 attendees along with an all-star faculty. I couldn’t attend myself, but found a reporter’s summary informative and I recommend it.

While the summary didn’t suggest the conference provided a cure or simple path to improvement, I’m encouraged that the topic has attracted the attention of some pretty smart people. If there is a second edition of this conference, I’ll try hard to attend.

Worthwhile web resources

The home page of Stanford’s WellMD Center provides a continuously updated list of recent research publications on physician health and links to many other resources, and is worth bookmarking.

Another great educational resource for physician wellness is the AMA’s STEPS Forward, a site devoted to practice improvement that provides guidance on patient care, work flow and process, leading change, technology and finance, as well as professional well-being. Of the five separate education modules in the latter category, I found the one on “Preventing Physician Burnout” especially informative. The site is free, doesn’t require an AMA membership, and can provide CME credit.

Making a difference locally: Individuals

Surveys, research, and the experience of experts available via the above resources and others are very valuable, but may be hard to translate into action for you and your fellow local caregivers. My sense is that many hospitalists address their own work-related distress by simply working less in total – reducing their full-time equivalents. That may be the most tangible and accessible intervention, and undeniably the right thing to do in some cases. But it isn’t an ideal approach for our field, which faces chronic staffing shortages. And it doesn’t do anything to change the average level of distress of a day of work. I worry that many people will find disappointment if working fewer shifts is their only burnout mitigation strategy.

Ensuring that you have some work-related interest outside of direct patient care, such as being the local electronic health record expert, or even the person leading formation of a support committee, can be really valuable. I first addressed this topic in the June 2011 issue of The Hospitalist, and there is a long list of things to consider: mindfulness, practicing “ self-compassion ,” cultivating deeper social connections in and out of the workplace, etc. Ultimately, each of us will have to choose our own path, and for some that should include professional help, e.g., from a mental health care provider.

But as a colleague once put it, a focus on changing ourselves is akin to just learning to take a punch better. A worthwhile endeavor, but it’s also necessary to try to decrease the number of punches thrown our way.

Making a difference locally: Medical staff

I’m part of the Provider Support Committee at my hospital, and I have concluded that nearly every hospital should have a group like this. Our own committee was modeled after the support committee at a hospital five miles away, and both groups see value in collaborating in our efforts. In fact, a person from each hospital’s committee serves on the committee at the other hospital.

These committees have popped up in other institutions, and many have been at it longer than at my hospital. But they all seem to share a mission of developing and implementing programs to position caregivers to thrive in their work, increase resilience, and reduce their risk of burnout. Some interventions are focused on making changes to an EHR, work schedules, work flows, or even staffing levels (i.e., reducing the “number of punches”). Other efforts are directed toward establishing groups that support personal reflection and/or social connections among providers.

A review of activities undertaken by seven different organizations is available at the AMA STEPS forward Preventing Physician Burnout website (click on “STEPS in practice.”)

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com

I wrote about physician burnout and well-being in the July 2017 version of this column, and am still thinking a great deal about those issues. In the past 6 months, I can’t identify anything that strikes me as a real breakthrough in addressing these issues. However, the ever-increasing attention and resources directed at physician burnout and wellness, on both a local and national level, strike me as reason for cautious optimism.

A chief wellness officer

In summer 2017, Stanford University created a new physician executive role called chief wellness officer (CWO). As far as I am aware, this is the first such position connected with a hospital or medical school. It will be interesting to see if other organizations create similar positions, although I suspect that in places where it is explicitly recognized as a priority, responsibility for this work will be one of the many duties of a chief medical officer or other such executive, and not a position devoted solely to wellness. Interestingly, an Internet search revealed that some non–health care businesses have executive positions with that title, though the role seems focused more on physical health – as in exercise and smoking cessation – than emotional well-being and burnout.

According to a statement on the Stanford Medicine website, the new CWO will work with colleagues to continue “building on its innovative WellMD Center , which was established in 2016. The center has engaged more than 200 physicians through programs focusing on peer support, stress reduction, and ways to cultivate compassion and resilience, as well as a literature and a dinner series in which physicians explore the challenges and rewards of being a doctor. The center also aims to relieve some of the burden on physicians by improving efficiency and simplifying workplace systems, such as electronic medical records.”

A national conference

Over the last 2 or 3 years many, if not most, physician conferences, including the SHM annual conference, have added some content around physician burnout and well-being. But for the first time I’m aware of, an entire conference, the American Conference on Physician Health, addressed these topics in San Francisco in October 2017, and attracted 425 attendees along with an all-star faculty. I couldn’t attend myself, but found a reporter’s summary informative and I recommend it.

While the summary didn’t suggest the conference provided a cure or simple path to improvement, I’m encouraged that the topic has attracted the attention of some pretty smart people. If there is a second edition of this conference, I’ll try hard to attend.

Worthwhile web resources

The home page of Stanford’s WellMD Center provides a continuously updated list of recent research publications on physician health and links to many other resources, and is worth bookmarking.

Another great educational resource for physician wellness is the AMA’s STEPS Forward, a site devoted to practice improvement that provides guidance on patient care, work flow and process, leading change, technology and finance, as well as professional well-being. Of the five separate education modules in the latter category, I found the one on “Preventing Physician Burnout” especially informative. The site is free, doesn’t require an AMA membership, and can provide CME credit.

Making a difference locally: Individuals

Surveys, research, and the experience of experts available via the above resources and others are very valuable, but may be hard to translate into action for you and your fellow local caregivers. My sense is that many hospitalists address their own work-related distress by simply working less in total – reducing their full-time equivalents. That may be the most tangible and accessible intervention, and undeniably the right thing to do in some cases. But it isn’t an ideal approach for our field, which faces chronic staffing shortages. And it doesn’t do anything to change the average level of distress of a day of work. I worry that many people will find disappointment if working fewer shifts is their only burnout mitigation strategy.

Ensuring that you have some work-related interest outside of direct patient care, such as being the local electronic health record expert, or even the person leading formation of a support committee, can be really valuable. I first addressed this topic in the June 2011 issue of The Hospitalist, and there is a long list of things to consider: mindfulness, practicing “ self-compassion ,” cultivating deeper social connections in and out of the workplace, etc. Ultimately, each of us will have to choose our own path, and for some that should include professional help, e.g., from a mental health care provider.

But as a colleague once put it, a focus on changing ourselves is akin to just learning to take a punch better. A worthwhile endeavor, but it’s also necessary to try to decrease the number of punches thrown our way.

Making a difference locally: Medical staff

I’m part of the Provider Support Committee at my hospital, and I have concluded that nearly every hospital should have a group like this. Our own committee was modeled after the support committee at a hospital five miles away, and both groups see value in collaborating in our efforts. In fact, a person from each hospital’s committee serves on the committee at the other hospital.

These committees have popped up in other institutions, and many have been at it longer than at my hospital. But they all seem to share a mission of developing and implementing programs to position caregivers to thrive in their work, increase resilience, and reduce their risk of burnout. Some interventions are focused on making changes to an EHR, work schedules, work flows, or even staffing levels (i.e., reducing the “number of punches”). Other efforts are directed toward establishing groups that support personal reflection and/or social connections among providers.

A review of activities undertaken by seven different organizations is available at the AMA STEPS forward Preventing Physician Burnout website (click on “STEPS in practice.”)

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com

I wrote about physician burnout and well-being in the July 2017 version of this column, and am still thinking a great deal about those issues. In the past 6 months, I can’t identify anything that strikes me as a real breakthrough in addressing these issues. However, the ever-increasing attention and resources directed at physician burnout and wellness, on both a local and national level, strike me as reason for cautious optimism.

A chief wellness officer

In summer 2017, Stanford University created a new physician executive role called chief wellness officer (CWO). As far as I am aware, this is the first such position connected with a hospital or medical school. It will be interesting to see if other organizations create similar positions, although I suspect that in places where it is explicitly recognized as a priority, responsibility for this work will be one of the many duties of a chief medical officer or other such executive, and not a position devoted solely to wellness. Interestingly, an Internet search revealed that some non–health care businesses have executive positions with that title, though the role seems focused more on physical health – as in exercise and smoking cessation – than emotional well-being and burnout.

According to a statement on the Stanford Medicine website, the new CWO will work with colleagues to continue “building on its innovative WellMD Center , which was established in 2016. The center has engaged more than 200 physicians through programs focusing on peer support, stress reduction, and ways to cultivate compassion and resilience, as well as a literature and a dinner series in which physicians explore the challenges and rewards of being a doctor. The center also aims to relieve some of the burden on physicians by improving efficiency and simplifying workplace systems, such as electronic medical records.”

A national conference

Over the last 2 or 3 years many, if not most, physician conferences, including the SHM annual conference, have added some content around physician burnout and well-being. But for the first time I’m aware of, an entire conference, the American Conference on Physician Health, addressed these topics in San Francisco in October 2017, and attracted 425 attendees along with an all-star faculty. I couldn’t attend myself, but found a reporter’s summary informative and I recommend it.

While the summary didn’t suggest the conference provided a cure or simple path to improvement, I’m encouraged that the topic has attracted the attention of some pretty smart people. If there is a second edition of this conference, I’ll try hard to attend.

Worthwhile web resources

The home page of Stanford’s WellMD Center provides a continuously updated list of recent research publications on physician health and links to many other resources, and is worth bookmarking.

Another great educational resource for physician wellness is the AMA’s STEPS Forward, a site devoted to practice improvement that provides guidance on patient care, work flow and process, leading change, technology and finance, as well as professional well-being. Of the five separate education modules in the latter category, I found the one on “Preventing Physician Burnout” especially informative. The site is free, doesn’t require an AMA membership, and can provide CME credit.

Making a difference locally: Individuals

Surveys, research, and the experience of experts available via the above resources and others are very valuable, but may be hard to translate into action for you and your fellow local caregivers. My sense is that many hospitalists address their own work-related distress by simply working less in total – reducing their full-time equivalents. That may be the most tangible and accessible intervention, and undeniably the right thing to do in some cases. But it isn’t an ideal approach for our field, which faces chronic staffing shortages. And it doesn’t do anything to change the average level of distress of a day of work. I worry that many people will find disappointment if working fewer shifts is their only burnout mitigation strategy.

Ensuring that you have some work-related interest outside of direct patient care, such as being the local electronic health record expert, or even the person leading formation of a support committee, can be really valuable. I first addressed this topic in the June 2011 issue of The Hospitalist, and there is a long list of things to consider: mindfulness, practicing “ self-compassion ,” cultivating deeper social connections in and out of the workplace, etc. Ultimately, each of us will have to choose our own path, and for some that should include professional help, e.g., from a mental health care provider.

But as a colleague once put it, a focus on changing ourselves is akin to just learning to take a punch better. A worthwhile endeavor, but it’s also necessary to try to decrease the number of punches thrown our way.

Making a difference locally: Medical staff

I’m part of the Provider Support Committee at my hospital, and I have concluded that nearly every hospital should have a group like this. Our own committee was modeled after the support committee at a hospital five miles away, and both groups see value in collaborating in our efforts. In fact, a person from each hospital’s committee serves on the committee at the other hospital.

These committees have popped up in other institutions, and many have been at it longer than at my hospital. But they all seem to share a mission of developing and implementing programs to position caregivers to thrive in their work, increase resilience, and reduce their risk of burnout. Some interventions are focused on making changes to an EHR, work schedules, work flows, or even staffing levels (i.e., reducing the “number of punches”). Other efforts are directed toward establishing groups that support personal reflection and/or social connections among providers.

A review of activities undertaken by seven different organizations is available at the AMA STEPS forward Preventing Physician Burnout website (click on “STEPS in practice.”)

Dr. Nelson has had a career in clinical practice as a hospitalist starting in 1988. He is cofounder and past president of SHM, and principal in Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants. He is codirector for SHM’s practice management courses. Contact him at john.nelson@nelsonflores.com

Of all the care decisions we make during a hospital stay, perhaps the one with the biggest implications for cost and quality is the one determining the location to which we send the patient after discharge.

Yet ironically, we haven’t typically participated in this decision, but instead have left it up to case managers and others to work with patients to determine discharge location. This is a missed opportunity, as patients first look to their doctor for guidance on this decision. Absent such guidance, they turn to other care team members for the conversation. With a principal focus on hospital length of stay, we have prioritized when patients are ready to leave over where they go after they leave.

Dr. Whitcomb is chief medical officer at Remedy Partners in Darien, Conn., and cofounder and past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine. Contact him at wfwhit@comcast.net.

References

1. Mechanic R. Post-acute care – the next frontier for controlling Medicare spending. N Engl J Med. 2014;370:692-4.

2. Newhouse JP, et al. Geographic variation in Medicare services. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:1465-8.

3. Kuo YF, et al. Association of hospitalist care with medical utilization after discharge: evidence of cost shift from a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2011;155(3):152-9.

4. Nichani S, et al. Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine 2017 Revision. Section 3: Healthcare Systems. J Hosp Med. 2017 April;12(1):S55-S82.
 

Framework for Selecting Appropriate Discharge Location

Patient Independence

• Can the patient perform activities of daily living?
• Can the patient ambulate?
• Is there cognitive impairment?

Caregiver Availability

• If the patient needs it, is a caregiver who is capable and reliable available? If so, to what extent is s/he available?

Therapy Needs

• Does the patient require PT, OT, and/or ST?
• How much and for how long?

Skilled Nursing Needs

• What, if anything, does the patient require in this area? For example, a new PEG tube, wound care, IV therapies, etc.

Social Factors

• Is there access to transportation, food, and safe housing?

Home Factors

• Are there stairs to enter the house or to get to the bedroom or bathroom?
• Has the home been modified to accommodate special needs? Is the home inhabitable?

Of all the care decisions we make during a hospital stay, perhaps the one with the biggest implications for cost and quality is the one determining the location to which we send the patient after discharge.

Yet ironically, we haven’t typically participated in this decision, but instead have left it up to case managers and others to work with patients to determine discharge location. This is a missed opportunity, as patients first look to their doctor for guidance on this decision. Absent such guidance, they turn to other care team members for the conversation. With a principal focus on hospital length of stay, we have prioritized when patients are ready to leave over where they go after they leave.

Dr. Whitcomb is chief medical officer at Remedy Partners in Darien, Conn., and cofounder and past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine. Contact him at wfwhit@comcast.net.

References

1. Mechanic R. Post-acute care – the next frontier for controlling Medicare spending. N Engl J Med. 2014;370:692-4.

2. Newhouse JP, et al. Geographic variation in Medicare services. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:1465-8.

3. Kuo YF, et al. Association of hospitalist care with medical utilization after discharge: evidence of cost shift from a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2011;155(3):152-9.

4. Nichani S, et al. Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine 2017 Revision. Section 3: Healthcare Systems. J Hosp Med. 2017 April;12(1):S55-S82.
 

Framework for Selecting Appropriate Discharge Location

Patient Independence

• Can the patient perform activities of daily living?
• Can the patient ambulate?
• Is there cognitive impairment?

Caregiver Availability

• If the patient needs it, is a caregiver who is capable and reliable available? If so, to what extent is s/he available?

Therapy Needs

• Does the patient require PT, OT, and/or ST?
• How much and for how long?

Skilled Nursing Needs

• What, if anything, does the patient require in this area? For example, a new PEG tube, wound care, IV therapies, etc.

Social Factors

• Is there access to transportation, food, and safe housing?

Home Factors

• Are there stairs to enter the house or to get to the bedroom or bathroom?
• Has the home been modified to accommodate special needs? Is the home inhabitable?

Of all the care decisions we make during a hospital stay, perhaps the one with the biggest implications for cost and quality is the one determining the location to which we send the patient after discharge.

Yet ironically, we haven’t typically participated in this decision, but instead have left it up to case managers and others to work with patients to determine discharge location. This is a missed opportunity, as patients first look to their doctor for guidance on this decision. Absent such guidance, they turn to other care team members for the conversation. With a principal focus on hospital length of stay, we have prioritized when patients are ready to leave over where they go after they leave.

Dr. Whitcomb is chief medical officer at Remedy Partners in Darien, Conn., and cofounder and past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine. Contact him at wfwhit@comcast.net.

References

1. Mechanic R. Post-acute care – the next frontier for controlling Medicare spending. N Engl J Med. 2014;370:692-4.

2. Newhouse JP, et al. Geographic variation in Medicare services. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:1465-8.

3. Kuo YF, et al. Association of hospitalist care with medical utilization after discharge: evidence of cost shift from a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2011;155(3):152-9.

4. Nichani S, et al. Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine 2017 Revision. Section 3: Healthcare Systems. J Hosp Med. 2017 April;12(1):S55-S82.
 

Framework for Selecting Appropriate Discharge Location

Patient Independence

• Can the patient perform activities of daily living?
• Can the patient ambulate?
• Is there cognitive impairment?

Caregiver Availability

• If the patient needs it, is a caregiver who is capable and reliable available? If so, to what extent is s/he available?

Therapy Needs

• Does the patient require PT, OT, and/or ST?
• How much and for how long?

Skilled Nursing Needs

• What, if anything, does the patient require in this area? For example, a new PEG tube, wound care, IV therapies, etc.

Social Factors

• Is there access to transportation, food, and safe housing?

Home Factors

• Are there stairs to enter the house or to get to the bedroom or bathroom?
• Has the home been modified to accommodate special needs? Is the home inhabitable?

Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike

On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.

• Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
• Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.

Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
 

Also on The Hospital Leader …

• If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
• Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
• Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
• Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM

Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike

On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.

• Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
• Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.

Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
 

Also on The Hospital Leader …

• If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
• Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
• Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
• Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM

Cultivating women leaders in health care #WIMmonth #ThisIsWhatADoctorLooksLike

On my flight home from Scotland, I had a moment to watch a movie while my daughter was caught up in the encore adventures of Moana. I stumbled upon “Hidden Figures,” the story of the African American women at NASA who helped launch John Glenn into space, reviving the nation’s space program.

• Stereotype threat: Some of the original research on stereotype threat done in college students showed that, if women who are about to take a math test are told that the test will expose gender differences, such as men do better at math, women will perform worse AND men will do better. The threat of stereotypes is that women can internalize them and this may hamper their progress. The good news is that education on stereotype threat apparently helps.
• Impostor syndrome: Even highly successful people apparently suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they do not deserve their success, but it is much worse in women than in men. You are always trying to conquer the little voice in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.

Read the full post at hospitalleader.org.
 

Also on The Hospital Leader …

• If I were you, I would not be bullish on long-term care by Brad Flansbaum, DO, MPH, MHM
• Da Vinci wuz here by Jordan Messler, MD, SFHM
• Making the implicit explicit by Leslie Flores, MHA, SFHM
• Should we really focus on “patient-centered care”? by Tracy Cardin, ACNP-BC, SFHM