Larry Wellikson, MD, MHM

Changing times

After more than 20 years, my leadership role as CEO at the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has ended with the transition to Dr. Eric Howell as the new SHM CEO on July 1, 2020. Looking back, I think we can all be proud of how we have helped to shape the specialty of hospital medicine over these two decades and of how strong SHM has become to support our new specialty.

In 2000, few people knew what a hospitalist was (or more importantly what we could become) and the specialty of hospital medicine had not even been named yet. Today the reputation of SHM is firmly established and the specialty has been defined by a unique curriculum through the Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine for both adult and pediatric patients, and by several textbooks in hospital medicine. There are divisions or departments of hospital medicine at many hospitals and academic medical centers. We even managed to convince the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the American Board of Medical Specialties to create a credential of Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine as the first-ever certification not tied to specific fellowship training.

To recognize the contributions of our members, SHM has established Awards of Excellence and the Fellow and Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine (FHM and SFHM) designations. We have gone from a small national association in Philadelphia to create 68 active chapters and more than 20 Special Interest Groups. In my time at SHM I have attended more than 75-chapter meetings and met with thousands of hospitalists in 46 states. We now have over 20,000 members at SHM, making us the fastest growing medical specialty ever.

When I started at the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) our only meeting was an annual CME meeting for about 150-200 people. We now hold a national meeting every year for more than 4,000 attendees that is the “Center of the Universe for Hospital Medicine.” Understanding that we needed to educate the people who will lead change in our health care system, we developed from scratch a set of Leadership Academies that has already educated more than 2,500 hospitalist leaders. To train the educators in quality improvement in medical education we developed our Quality and Safety Educator Academy (QSEA) programs, and to promote career development of academic hospitalists we created our Academic Hospitalist Academy.

SHM is the leader in adult in-practice learning, specifically designed for hospitalists. SHM members have access to a state-of-the-art comprehensive hospitalist-based online education system as well as board review and maintenance of certification (MOC) review tools in our SPARK program, specifically for hospital medicine.

In the area of quality improvement, most medical societies convene a panel of experts, develop guidelines, publish them, and hope that change will occur. SHM has been much more proactive, creating the Center for Quality Improvement that has raised more than $10 million and developed Quality Improvement programs in more than 400 hospitals over the years, winning the prestigious Eisenberg Award along the way.

When I started at NAIP in 2000, our only communication tools were a 4-page newsletter and an email listserv. Along the way we have developed a broadly read newsmagazine (The Hospitalist), a well-recognized peer reviewed journal (Journal of Hospital Medicine), a robust website, and a significant social media presence.

From the very early days we knew that our specialty would not be totally successful by only facing inward. Change was coming to our health care system and hospitalists were going to be right in the middle. Despite our young age and limited resources, we have always hit above our weight class in advocacy. We actively participated in the development of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), making suggestions in payment reform, expanding the workforce with visa reform, and expanding the team of clinicians. Along the way SHM members rose to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and serve as U.S. Surgeon General.

Today in these troubled times, SHM continues to be a positive voice in promoting the use of PPE, the need for increased COVID-19 testing, and the recognition of our nation’s 60,000 hospitalists as essential frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. With its longstanding role in promoting diversity and overcoming social injustice, SHM has had a positive national voice during the protests over police brutality.

We have proved to be a good partner with many other organizations and consistently were invited to partner in coalitions with the ED physicians (ACEP), the critical care docs (SCCM), the hospitals (AHA), the house of medicine (AMA), other internists (ACP), surgeons (ACS), and pediatricians (AAP), and so many other much more established societies, because we could be an active, flexible, and knowledgeable partner for more than 20 years.

Today, SHM and hospital medicine are clearly recognized as a force in the rapidly evolving health care system. With this comes not only influence but also responsibility, and I am certain the SHM Board, membership, and staff are ready for this challenge. The economic toll of our current pandemic will see colleges and other major companies and institutions go out of business and leave the landscape. SHM has a deep foundation and a well of strength to call on and will survive and thrive into the future.

SHM has been a good fit for me professionally and personally. Many of my skills and strengths have served SHM in our “early” years. I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish TOGETHER. In the end it is the people I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with throughout these past 20 years that will stay with me, many of whom are lifelong friends. My mother, even today at 93, has always asked me to leave anything I do better off than when I came in the door. As I look back at my time helping to shape and lead SHM, I am sure I have answered my mother’s challenge and more.

I look forward to seeing many of you at a future SHM meeting and reveling in the way that hospitalists will actively play an important role in shaping our health care system in the future.
 

Dr. Wellikson is retiring as CEO of SHM.

Live long and prosper

Back in 2000, I was extremely fortunate to land my dream job as a hospitalist at Johns Hopkins Bayview in Baltimore. That dream exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year career as faculty in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine I grew our tiny, 4 physician hospitalist group at Johns Hopkins Bayview into a multihospital program, complete with more than 150 physicians. That exceedingly rewarding work helped to shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my promotion to professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins in 2016.

Most professionals are lucky if they find one inspiring institution; I have found two. SHM has been my professional home since I became a hospitalist in 2000, and in that time I have dedicated as much creative energy to SHM as I have at Johns Hopkins.

Even at this time when the medical profession, and the entire world, has been rocked by the coronavirus, the fundamentals that have made SHM so successful will serve us well through the effects of this pandemic and beyond. It takes a skilled leader to nurture a professional society through the growth from only a few hundred members to thousands upon thousands, and at the same time crafting the profession into one of quality and high impact. These past 22 years Dr. Larry Wellikson, our retiring CEO, has skillfully accomplished just that by building lasting programs and people.

As you might imagine, my approach will work to add onto the legacy that Larry has left us. Yes, we will have to adapt SHM to the realities of the near future: virtual meetings, in-person events (yes, those will return one day) with appropriate social distancing until the coronavirus has faded, modified chapter meetings, and more. Someday the world will find a new normal, and SHM will evolve to meet the needs of our members and the patients we serve.

Through this pandemic and beyond, my vision – in partnership with the Board of Directors – will be to:

• Continue the work to enhance member engagement. We are primarily a membership organization, after all.
• Maintain our profession’s leadership role in the care continuum, particularly acute care.
• Be a deliberate sponsor of diversity and inclusion. I believe social justice is a moral imperative, and good business.
• Invest in teams: Chapters, special interest groups, and committees are key to success.
• Be financially prudent, so that this organization can serve its members through the best of times and those most challenging times.

Back in 2000 I joined my dream society, the Society of Hospital Medicine. That society exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year membership I started an SHM Chapter, was a leader in the Leadership Academies, joined the Board of Directors, participated in Annual Conferences, and helped lead the SHM Center for Quality Improvement. That exceedingly rewarding partnership helped shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my next role at SHM. I am excited and grateful to be the CEO of SHM.

I’ll end with something I use every day – “Eric Howell’s Core Values”:

• Make the world a better place.
• Invest in people.
• Be ethical and transparent.
• Do what you love.
• Try to use Star Trek references whenever possible. (Okay, this last one is not really a core value, but maybe a character trait?) At least the Vulcan greeting is appropriate for our times: Live long and prosper.

Dr. Howell is the new CEO for SHM as of July 1, 2020.

Changing times

After more than 20 years, my leadership role as CEO at the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has ended with the transition to Dr. Eric Howell as the new SHM CEO on July 1, 2020. Looking back, I think we can all be proud of how we have helped to shape the specialty of hospital medicine over these two decades and of how strong SHM has become to support our new specialty.

In 2000, few people knew what a hospitalist was (or more importantly what we could become) and the specialty of hospital medicine had not even been named yet. Today the reputation of SHM is firmly established and the specialty has been defined by a unique curriculum through the Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine for both adult and pediatric patients, and by several textbooks in hospital medicine. There are divisions or departments of hospital medicine at many hospitals and academic medical centers. We even managed to convince the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the American Board of Medical Specialties to create a credential of Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine as the first-ever certification not tied to specific fellowship training.

To recognize the contributions of our members, SHM has established Awards of Excellence and the Fellow and Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine (FHM and SFHM) designations. We have gone from a small national association in Philadelphia to create 68 active chapters and more than 20 Special Interest Groups. In my time at SHM I have attended more than 75-chapter meetings and met with thousands of hospitalists in 46 states. We now have over 20,000 members at SHM, making us the fastest growing medical specialty ever.

When I started at the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) our only meeting was an annual CME meeting for about 150-200 people. We now hold a national meeting every year for more than 4,000 attendees that is the “Center of the Universe for Hospital Medicine.” Understanding that we needed to educate the people who will lead change in our health care system, we developed from scratch a set of Leadership Academies that has already educated more than 2,500 hospitalist leaders. To train the educators in quality improvement in medical education we developed our Quality and Safety Educator Academy (QSEA) programs, and to promote career development of academic hospitalists we created our Academic Hospitalist Academy.

SHM is the leader in adult in-practice learning, specifically designed for hospitalists. SHM members have access to a state-of-the-art comprehensive hospitalist-based online education system as well as board review and maintenance of certification (MOC) review tools in our SPARK program, specifically for hospital medicine.

In the area of quality improvement, most medical societies convene a panel of experts, develop guidelines, publish them, and hope that change will occur. SHM has been much more proactive, creating the Center for Quality Improvement that has raised more than $10 million and developed Quality Improvement programs in more than 400 hospitals over the years, winning the prestigious Eisenberg Award along the way.

When I started at NAIP in 2000, our only communication tools were a 4-page newsletter and an email listserv. Along the way we have developed a broadly read newsmagazine (The Hospitalist), a well-recognized peer reviewed journal (Journal of Hospital Medicine), a robust website, and a significant social media presence.

From the very early days we knew that our specialty would not be totally successful by only facing inward. Change was coming to our health care system and hospitalists were going to be right in the middle. Despite our young age and limited resources, we have always hit above our weight class in advocacy. We actively participated in the development of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), making suggestions in payment reform, expanding the workforce with visa reform, and expanding the team of clinicians. Along the way SHM members rose to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and serve as U.S. Surgeon General.

Today in these troubled times, SHM continues to be a positive voice in promoting the use of PPE, the need for increased COVID-19 testing, and the recognition of our nation’s 60,000 hospitalists as essential frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. With its longstanding role in promoting diversity and overcoming social injustice, SHM has had a positive national voice during the protests over police brutality.

We have proved to be a good partner with many other organizations and consistently were invited to partner in coalitions with the ED physicians (ACEP), the critical care docs (SCCM), the hospitals (AHA), the house of medicine (AMA), other internists (ACP), surgeons (ACS), and pediatricians (AAP), and so many other much more established societies, because we could be an active, flexible, and knowledgeable partner for more than 20 years.

Today, SHM and hospital medicine are clearly recognized as a force in the rapidly evolving health care system. With this comes not only influence but also responsibility, and I am certain the SHM Board, membership, and staff are ready for this challenge. The economic toll of our current pandemic will see colleges and other major companies and institutions go out of business and leave the landscape. SHM has a deep foundation and a well of strength to call on and will survive and thrive into the future.

SHM has been a good fit for me professionally and personally. Many of my skills and strengths have served SHM in our “early” years. I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish TOGETHER. In the end it is the people I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with throughout these past 20 years that will stay with me, many of whom are lifelong friends. My mother, even today at 93, has always asked me to leave anything I do better off than when I came in the door. As I look back at my time helping to shape and lead SHM, I am sure I have answered my mother’s challenge and more.

I look forward to seeing many of you at a future SHM meeting and reveling in the way that hospitalists will actively play an important role in shaping our health care system in the future.
 

Dr. Wellikson is retiring as CEO of SHM.

Live long and prosper

Back in 2000, I was extremely fortunate to land my dream job as a hospitalist at Johns Hopkins Bayview in Baltimore. That dream exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year career as faculty in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine I grew our tiny, 4 physician hospitalist group at Johns Hopkins Bayview into a multihospital program, complete with more than 150 physicians. That exceedingly rewarding work helped to shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my promotion to professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins in 2016.

Most professionals are lucky if they find one inspiring institution; I have found two. SHM has been my professional home since I became a hospitalist in 2000, and in that time I have dedicated as much creative energy to SHM as I have at Johns Hopkins.

Even at this time when the medical profession, and the entire world, has been rocked by the coronavirus, the fundamentals that have made SHM so successful will serve us well through the effects of this pandemic and beyond. It takes a skilled leader to nurture a professional society through the growth from only a few hundred members to thousands upon thousands, and at the same time crafting the profession into one of quality and high impact. These past 22 years Dr. Larry Wellikson, our retiring CEO, has skillfully accomplished just that by building lasting programs and people.

As you might imagine, my approach will work to add onto the legacy that Larry has left us. Yes, we will have to adapt SHM to the realities of the near future: virtual meetings, in-person events (yes, those will return one day) with appropriate social distancing until the coronavirus has faded, modified chapter meetings, and more. Someday the world will find a new normal, and SHM will evolve to meet the needs of our members and the patients we serve.

Through this pandemic and beyond, my vision – in partnership with the Board of Directors – will be to:

• Continue the work to enhance member engagement. We are primarily a membership organization, after all.
• Maintain our profession’s leadership role in the care continuum, particularly acute care.
• Be a deliberate sponsor of diversity and inclusion. I believe social justice is a moral imperative, and good business.
• Invest in teams: Chapters, special interest groups, and committees are key to success.
• Be financially prudent, so that this organization can serve its members through the best of times and those most challenging times.

Back in 2000 I joined my dream society, the Society of Hospital Medicine. That society exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year membership I started an SHM Chapter, was a leader in the Leadership Academies, joined the Board of Directors, participated in Annual Conferences, and helped lead the SHM Center for Quality Improvement. That exceedingly rewarding partnership helped shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my next role at SHM. I am excited and grateful to be the CEO of SHM.

I’ll end with something I use every day – “Eric Howell’s Core Values”:

• Make the world a better place.
• Invest in people.
• Be ethical and transparent.
• Do what you love.
• Try to use Star Trek references whenever possible. (Okay, this last one is not really a core value, but maybe a character trait?) At least the Vulcan greeting is appropriate for our times: Live long and prosper.

Dr. Howell is the new CEO for SHM as of July 1, 2020.

Changing times

After more than 20 years, my leadership role as CEO at the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has ended with the transition to Dr. Eric Howell as the new SHM CEO on July 1, 2020. Looking back, I think we can all be proud of how we have helped to shape the specialty of hospital medicine over these two decades and of how strong SHM has become to support our new specialty.

In 2000, few people knew what a hospitalist was (or more importantly what we could become) and the specialty of hospital medicine had not even been named yet. Today the reputation of SHM is firmly established and the specialty has been defined by a unique curriculum through the Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine for both adult and pediatric patients, and by several textbooks in hospital medicine. There are divisions or departments of hospital medicine at many hospitals and academic medical centers. We even managed to convince the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the American Board of Medical Specialties to create a credential of Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine as the first-ever certification not tied to specific fellowship training.

To recognize the contributions of our members, SHM has established Awards of Excellence and the Fellow and Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine (FHM and SFHM) designations. We have gone from a small national association in Philadelphia to create 68 active chapters and more than 20 Special Interest Groups. In my time at SHM I have attended more than 75-chapter meetings and met with thousands of hospitalists in 46 states. We now have over 20,000 members at SHM, making us the fastest growing medical specialty ever.

When I started at the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) our only meeting was an annual CME meeting for about 150-200 people. We now hold a national meeting every year for more than 4,000 attendees that is the “Center of the Universe for Hospital Medicine.” Understanding that we needed to educate the people who will lead change in our health care system, we developed from scratch a set of Leadership Academies that has already educated more than 2,500 hospitalist leaders. To train the educators in quality improvement in medical education we developed our Quality and Safety Educator Academy (QSEA) programs, and to promote career development of academic hospitalists we created our Academic Hospitalist Academy.

SHM is the leader in adult in-practice learning, specifically designed for hospitalists. SHM members have access to a state-of-the-art comprehensive hospitalist-based online education system as well as board review and maintenance of certification (MOC) review tools in our SPARK program, specifically for hospital medicine.

In the area of quality improvement, most medical societies convene a panel of experts, develop guidelines, publish them, and hope that change will occur. SHM has been much more proactive, creating the Center for Quality Improvement that has raised more than $10 million and developed Quality Improvement programs in more than 400 hospitals over the years, winning the prestigious Eisenberg Award along the way.

When I started at NAIP in 2000, our only communication tools were a 4-page newsletter and an email listserv. Along the way we have developed a broadly read newsmagazine (The Hospitalist), a well-recognized peer reviewed journal (Journal of Hospital Medicine), a robust website, and a significant social media presence.

From the very early days we knew that our specialty would not be totally successful by only facing inward. Change was coming to our health care system and hospitalists were going to be right in the middle. Despite our young age and limited resources, we have always hit above our weight class in advocacy. We actively participated in the development of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), making suggestions in payment reform, expanding the workforce with visa reform, and expanding the team of clinicians. Along the way SHM members rose to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and serve as U.S. Surgeon General.

Today in these troubled times, SHM continues to be a positive voice in promoting the use of PPE, the need for increased COVID-19 testing, and the recognition of our nation’s 60,000 hospitalists as essential frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. With its longstanding role in promoting diversity and overcoming social injustice, SHM has had a positive national voice during the protests over police brutality.

We have proved to be a good partner with many other organizations and consistently were invited to partner in coalitions with the ED physicians (ACEP), the critical care docs (SCCM), the hospitals (AHA), the house of medicine (AMA), other internists (ACP), surgeons (ACS), and pediatricians (AAP), and so many other much more established societies, because we could be an active, flexible, and knowledgeable partner for more than 20 years.

Today, SHM and hospital medicine are clearly recognized as a force in the rapidly evolving health care system. With this comes not only influence but also responsibility, and I am certain the SHM Board, membership, and staff are ready for this challenge. The economic toll of our current pandemic will see colleges and other major companies and institutions go out of business and leave the landscape. SHM has a deep foundation and a well of strength to call on and will survive and thrive into the future.

SHM has been a good fit for me professionally and personally. Many of my skills and strengths have served SHM in our “early” years. I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish TOGETHER. In the end it is the people I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with throughout these past 20 years that will stay with me, many of whom are lifelong friends. My mother, even today at 93, has always asked me to leave anything I do better off than when I came in the door. As I look back at my time helping to shape and lead SHM, I am sure I have answered my mother’s challenge and more.

I look forward to seeing many of you at a future SHM meeting and reveling in the way that hospitalists will actively play an important role in shaping our health care system in the future.
 

Dr. Wellikson is retiring as CEO of SHM.

Live long and prosper

Back in 2000, I was extremely fortunate to land my dream job as a hospitalist at Johns Hopkins Bayview in Baltimore. That dream exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year career as faculty in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine I grew our tiny, 4 physician hospitalist group at Johns Hopkins Bayview into a multihospital program, complete with more than 150 physicians. That exceedingly rewarding work helped to shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my promotion to professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins in 2016.

Most professionals are lucky if they find one inspiring institution; I have found two. SHM has been my professional home since I became a hospitalist in 2000, and in that time I have dedicated as much creative energy to SHM as I have at Johns Hopkins.

Even at this time when the medical profession, and the entire world, has been rocked by the coronavirus, the fundamentals that have made SHM so successful will serve us well through the effects of this pandemic and beyond. It takes a skilled leader to nurture a professional society through the growth from only a few hundred members to thousands upon thousands, and at the same time crafting the profession into one of quality and high impact. These past 22 years Dr. Larry Wellikson, our retiring CEO, has skillfully accomplished just that by building lasting programs and people.

As you might imagine, my approach will work to add onto the legacy that Larry has left us. Yes, we will have to adapt SHM to the realities of the near future: virtual meetings, in-person events (yes, those will return one day) with appropriate social distancing until the coronavirus has faded, modified chapter meetings, and more. Someday the world will find a new normal, and SHM will evolve to meet the needs of our members and the patients we serve.

Through this pandemic and beyond, my vision – in partnership with the Board of Directors – will be to:

• Continue the work to enhance member engagement. We are primarily a membership organization, after all.
• Maintain our profession’s leadership role in the care continuum, particularly acute care.
• Be a deliberate sponsor of diversity and inclusion. I believe social justice is a moral imperative, and good business.
• Invest in teams: Chapters, special interest groups, and committees are key to success.
• Be financially prudent, so that this organization can serve its members through the best of times and those most challenging times.

Back in 2000 I joined my dream society, the Society of Hospital Medicine. That society exceeded my wildest aspirations. During my 20-year membership I started an SHM Chapter, was a leader in the Leadership Academies, joined the Board of Directors, participated in Annual Conferences, and helped lead the SHM Center for Quality Improvement. That exceedingly rewarding partnership helped shape the field of hospital medicine nationally and provided the foundation for my next role at SHM. I am excited and grateful to be the CEO of SHM.

I’ll end with something I use every day – “Eric Howell’s Core Values”:

• Make the world a better place.
• Invest in people.
• Be ethical and transparent.
• Do what you love.
• Try to use Star Trek references whenever possible. (Okay, this last one is not really a core value, but maybe a character trait?) At least the Vulcan greeting is appropriate for our times: Live long and prosper.

Dr. Howell is the new CEO for SHM as of July 1, 2020.

When I started at the Society of Hospital Medicine – known then as the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) – in January 2000, Bill Clinton was still president. There were probably 500 hospitalists in the United States, and SHM had about 200-250 members.

It was so long ago that the iPhone hadn’t been invented, Twitter wasn’t even an idea, and Amazon was an online book store. SHM’s national offices were a cubicle at the American College of Physicians headquarters in Philadelphia, and our entire staff was me and a part-time assistant.

We have certainly come a long way in my 20 years as CEO of SHM.

When I first became involved with NAIP, it was to help the board with their strategic planning in 1998. At that time, the national thought leaders for the hospitalist movement (the term hospital medicine had not been invented yet) predicted that hospitalists would eventually do the inpatient work for about 25% of family doctors and for 15% of internists. Hospitalists were considered to be a form of “general medicine” without an office-based practice.

One of the first things we set about doing was to define the new specialty of hospital medicine before anyone else (e.g., American Medical Association, ACP, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, the government) defined us.

Most specialties were defined by a body organ (e.g., cardiology, renal), a population (e.g., pediatrics, geriatrics), or a disease (e.g., oncology), and there were a few other site-specific specialties (e.g., ED medicine, critical care). We felt that, to be a specialty, we needed certain key elements:

• Separate group consciousness
• Professional society
• Distinct residency and fellowship programs
• Separate CME
• Distinct educational materials (e.g., textbooks)
• Definable and distinct competencies
• Separate credentials – certification and/or hospital insurance driven

Early on, SHM defined the Core Competencies for Hospital Medicine for adults in patient care and, eventually, for pediatric patients. We rebranded our specialty as hospital medicine to be more than just inpatient physicians, and to broadly encompass the growing “big tent” of SHM that included those trained in internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, med-peds, as well as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and others.

We were the first and only specialty society to set the standard for hospitalist compensation (how much you are paid) and productivity (what you are expected to do) with our unique State of Hospital Medicine (SOHM) Report. Other specialties left this work to the Medical Group Management Association, the AMA, or commercial companies.

Our specialty was soon being asked to do things that no other group of clinicians was ever asked to do.

Hospitalists were expected to Save Money by reducing length of stay and the use of resources on the sickest patients. Hospitalists were asked to Improve Measurable Quality at a time when most other physicians or even hospitals weren’t even being measured.

We were expected to form and Lead Teams of other clinicians when health care was still seen as a solo enterprise. Hospitalists were expected to Improve Efficiency and to create a Seamless Continuity, both during the hospital stay and in the transitions out of the hospital.

Hospitalists were asked to do things no one else wanted to do, such as taking on the uncompensated patients and extra hospital committee work and just about any new project their hospital wanted to be involved in. Along the way, we were expected to Make Other Physicians’ Lives Better by taking on their inpatients, inpatient calls, comanagement with specialists, and unloading the ED.

And both at medical schools and in the community, hospitalists became the Major Educators of medical students, residents, nurses, and other hospital staff.

At the same time, SHM was focusing on becoming a very unique medical professional society.

SHM built on the energy of our young and innovative hospitalists to forge a different path. We had no reputation to protect. We were not bound like most other specialty societies to over 100 years of “the way it’s always been done.”

While other professional societies thought their role in quality improvement was to pontificate and publish clinical guidelines that often were little used, SHM embarked on an aggressive, hands-on, frontline approach by starting SHM’s Center for Quality Improvement. Over the last 15 years, the center has raised millions of dollars to deliver real change and improvement at hundreds of hospitals nationwide, many times bringing work plans and mentors to support and train local clinicians in quality improvement skills and data collection. This approach was recognized by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission with their prestigious John Eisenberg Award for Quality Improvement.

When we went to Washington to help shape the future of health care, we did not ask for more money for hospitalists. We did not ask for more power or to use regulations to protect our new specialty. Instead, we went with ideas of how to make acute medical care more effective and efficient. We could show the politicians and the regulators how we could reduce incidence of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli, how we could make the hospital discharge process work better, how we could help chart a smoother medication reconciliation process, and so many other ways the system could be improved.

And even the way SHM generated our new ideas was uniquely different than other specialties. Way back in 2000 – long before Twitter and other social media were able to crowdsource and use the Internet to percolate new ideas – SHM relied on our members’ conversations on the SHM electronic mail discussion list to see what hospitalists were worried about, and what everyone was being asked to do, and SHM provided the resources and initiatives to support our nation’s hospitalists.

From these early conversations, SHM heard that hospitalists were being asked to Lead Change without much of an idea of the skills they would need. And so, the SHM leadership academies were born, which have now educated more than 2,700 hospitalist leaders.

Early on, we learned that hospitalists and even their bosses had no idea of how to start or run a successful hospital medicine group. SHM started our practice management courses and webinars and we developed the groundbreaking document, Key Characteristics of Effective Hospital Medicine Groups. In a typical SHM manner, we challenged most of our members to improve and get better rather trying to defend the status quo. At SHM, we have constantly felt that hospital medicine was a “work in progress.” We may not be perfect today, but we will be better in 90 days and even better in a year.

I have more to say about how we got this far and even more to say about where we might go. So, stay tuned and keep contributing to the future and success of SHM and hospital medicine.

Dr. Wellikson is the CEO of SHM. He has announced his plan to retire from SHM in late 2020. This article is the first in a series celebrating Dr. Wellikson’s tenure as CEO.

When I started at the Society of Hospital Medicine – known then as the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) – in January 2000, Bill Clinton was still president. There were probably 500 hospitalists in the United States, and SHM had about 200-250 members.

It was so long ago that the iPhone hadn’t been invented, Twitter wasn’t even an idea, and Amazon was an online book store. SHM’s national offices were a cubicle at the American College of Physicians headquarters in Philadelphia, and our entire staff was me and a part-time assistant.

We have certainly come a long way in my 20 years as CEO of SHM.

When I first became involved with NAIP, it was to help the board with their strategic planning in 1998. At that time, the national thought leaders for the hospitalist movement (the term hospital medicine had not been invented yet) predicted that hospitalists would eventually do the inpatient work for about 25% of family doctors and for 15% of internists. Hospitalists were considered to be a form of “general medicine” without an office-based practice.

One of the first things we set about doing was to define the new specialty of hospital medicine before anyone else (e.g., American Medical Association, ACP, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, the government) defined us.

Most specialties were defined by a body organ (e.g., cardiology, renal), a population (e.g., pediatrics, geriatrics), or a disease (e.g., oncology), and there were a few other site-specific specialties (e.g., ED medicine, critical care). We felt that, to be a specialty, we needed certain key elements:

• Separate group consciousness
• Professional society
• Distinct residency and fellowship programs
• Separate CME
• Distinct educational materials (e.g., textbooks)
• Definable and distinct competencies
• Separate credentials – certification and/or hospital insurance driven

Early on, SHM defined the Core Competencies for Hospital Medicine for adults in patient care and, eventually, for pediatric patients. We rebranded our specialty as hospital medicine to be more than just inpatient physicians, and to broadly encompass the growing “big tent” of SHM that included those trained in internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, med-peds, as well as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and others.

We were the first and only specialty society to set the standard for hospitalist compensation (how much you are paid) and productivity (what you are expected to do) with our unique State of Hospital Medicine (SOHM) Report. Other specialties left this work to the Medical Group Management Association, the AMA, or commercial companies.

Our specialty was soon being asked to do things that no other group of clinicians was ever asked to do.

Hospitalists were expected to Save Money by reducing length of stay and the use of resources on the sickest patients. Hospitalists were asked to Improve Measurable Quality at a time when most other physicians or even hospitals weren’t even being measured.

We were expected to form and Lead Teams of other clinicians when health care was still seen as a solo enterprise. Hospitalists were expected to Improve Efficiency and to create a Seamless Continuity, both during the hospital stay and in the transitions out of the hospital.

Hospitalists were asked to do things no one else wanted to do, such as taking on the uncompensated patients and extra hospital committee work and just about any new project their hospital wanted to be involved in. Along the way, we were expected to Make Other Physicians’ Lives Better by taking on their inpatients, inpatient calls, comanagement with specialists, and unloading the ED.

And both at medical schools and in the community, hospitalists became the Major Educators of medical students, residents, nurses, and other hospital staff.

At the same time, SHM was focusing on becoming a very unique medical professional society.

SHM built on the energy of our young and innovative hospitalists to forge a different path. We had no reputation to protect. We were not bound like most other specialty societies to over 100 years of “the way it’s always been done.”

While other professional societies thought their role in quality improvement was to pontificate and publish clinical guidelines that often were little used, SHM embarked on an aggressive, hands-on, frontline approach by starting SHM’s Center for Quality Improvement. Over the last 15 years, the center has raised millions of dollars to deliver real change and improvement at hundreds of hospitals nationwide, many times bringing work plans and mentors to support and train local clinicians in quality improvement skills and data collection. This approach was recognized by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission with their prestigious John Eisenberg Award for Quality Improvement.

When we went to Washington to help shape the future of health care, we did not ask for more money for hospitalists. We did not ask for more power or to use regulations to protect our new specialty. Instead, we went with ideas of how to make acute medical care more effective and efficient. We could show the politicians and the regulators how we could reduce incidence of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli, how we could make the hospital discharge process work better, how we could help chart a smoother medication reconciliation process, and so many other ways the system could be improved.

And even the way SHM generated our new ideas was uniquely different than other specialties. Way back in 2000 – long before Twitter and other social media were able to crowdsource and use the Internet to percolate new ideas – SHM relied on our members’ conversations on the SHM electronic mail discussion list to see what hospitalists were worried about, and what everyone was being asked to do, and SHM provided the resources and initiatives to support our nation’s hospitalists.

From these early conversations, SHM heard that hospitalists were being asked to Lead Change without much of an idea of the skills they would need. And so, the SHM leadership academies were born, which have now educated more than 2,700 hospitalist leaders.

Early on, we learned that hospitalists and even their bosses had no idea of how to start or run a successful hospital medicine group. SHM started our practice management courses and webinars and we developed the groundbreaking document, Key Characteristics of Effective Hospital Medicine Groups. In a typical SHM manner, we challenged most of our members to improve and get better rather trying to defend the status quo. At SHM, we have constantly felt that hospital medicine was a “work in progress.” We may not be perfect today, but we will be better in 90 days and even better in a year.

I have more to say about how we got this far and even more to say about where we might go. So, stay tuned and keep contributing to the future and success of SHM and hospital medicine.

Dr. Wellikson is the CEO of SHM. He has announced his plan to retire from SHM in late 2020. This article is the first in a series celebrating Dr. Wellikson’s tenure as CEO.

When I started at the Society of Hospital Medicine – known then as the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP) – in January 2000, Bill Clinton was still president. There were probably 500 hospitalists in the United States, and SHM had about 200-250 members.

It was so long ago that the iPhone hadn’t been invented, Twitter wasn’t even an idea, and Amazon was an online book store. SHM’s national offices were a cubicle at the American College of Physicians headquarters in Philadelphia, and our entire staff was me and a part-time assistant.

We have certainly come a long way in my 20 years as CEO of SHM.

When I first became involved with NAIP, it was to help the board with their strategic planning in 1998. At that time, the national thought leaders for the hospitalist movement (the term hospital medicine had not been invented yet) predicted that hospitalists would eventually do the inpatient work for about 25% of family doctors and for 15% of internists. Hospitalists were considered to be a form of “general medicine” without an office-based practice.

One of the first things we set about doing was to define the new specialty of hospital medicine before anyone else (e.g., American Medical Association, ACP, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, the government) defined us.

Most specialties were defined by a body organ (e.g., cardiology, renal), a population (e.g., pediatrics, geriatrics), or a disease (e.g., oncology), and there were a few other site-specific specialties (e.g., ED medicine, critical care). We felt that, to be a specialty, we needed certain key elements:

• Separate group consciousness
• Professional society
• Distinct residency and fellowship programs
• Separate CME
• Distinct educational materials (e.g., textbooks)
• Definable and distinct competencies
• Separate credentials – certification and/or hospital insurance driven

Early on, SHM defined the Core Competencies for Hospital Medicine for adults in patient care and, eventually, for pediatric patients. We rebranded our specialty as hospital medicine to be more than just inpatient physicians, and to broadly encompass the growing “big tent” of SHM that included those trained in internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, med-peds, as well as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and others.

We were the first and only specialty society to set the standard for hospitalist compensation (how much you are paid) and productivity (what you are expected to do) with our unique State of Hospital Medicine (SOHM) Report. Other specialties left this work to the Medical Group Management Association, the AMA, or commercial companies.

Our specialty was soon being asked to do things that no other group of clinicians was ever asked to do.

Hospitalists were expected to Save Money by reducing length of stay and the use of resources on the sickest patients. Hospitalists were asked to Improve Measurable Quality at a time when most other physicians or even hospitals weren’t even being measured.

We were expected to form and Lead Teams of other clinicians when health care was still seen as a solo enterprise. Hospitalists were expected to Improve Efficiency and to create a Seamless Continuity, both during the hospital stay and in the transitions out of the hospital.

Hospitalists were asked to do things no one else wanted to do, such as taking on the uncompensated patients and extra hospital committee work and just about any new project their hospital wanted to be involved in. Along the way, we were expected to Make Other Physicians’ Lives Better by taking on their inpatients, inpatient calls, comanagement with specialists, and unloading the ED.

And both at medical schools and in the community, hospitalists became the Major Educators of medical students, residents, nurses, and other hospital staff.

At the same time, SHM was focusing on becoming a very unique medical professional society.

SHM built on the energy of our young and innovative hospitalists to forge a different path. We had no reputation to protect. We were not bound like most other specialty societies to over 100 years of “the way it’s always been done.”

While other professional societies thought their role in quality improvement was to pontificate and publish clinical guidelines that often were little used, SHM embarked on an aggressive, hands-on, frontline approach by starting SHM’s Center for Quality Improvement. Over the last 15 years, the center has raised millions of dollars to deliver real change and improvement at hundreds of hospitals nationwide, many times bringing work plans and mentors to support and train local clinicians in quality improvement skills and data collection. This approach was recognized by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission with their prestigious John Eisenberg Award for Quality Improvement.

When we went to Washington to help shape the future of health care, we did not ask for more money for hospitalists. We did not ask for more power or to use regulations to protect our new specialty. Instead, we went with ideas of how to make acute medical care more effective and efficient. We could show the politicians and the regulators how we could reduce incidence of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli, how we could make the hospital discharge process work better, how we could help chart a smoother medication reconciliation process, and so many other ways the system could be improved.

And even the way SHM generated our new ideas was uniquely different than other specialties. Way back in 2000 – long before Twitter and other social media were able to crowdsource and use the Internet to percolate new ideas – SHM relied on our members’ conversations on the SHM electronic mail discussion list to see what hospitalists were worried about, and what everyone was being asked to do, and SHM provided the resources and initiatives to support our nation’s hospitalists.

From these early conversations, SHM heard that hospitalists were being asked to Lead Change without much of an idea of the skills they would need. And so, the SHM leadership academies were born, which have now educated more than 2,700 hospitalist leaders.

Early on, we learned that hospitalists and even their bosses had no idea of how to start or run a successful hospital medicine group. SHM started our practice management courses and webinars and we developed the groundbreaking document, Key Characteristics of Effective Hospital Medicine Groups. In a typical SHM manner, we challenged most of our members to improve and get better rather trying to defend the status quo. At SHM, we have constantly felt that hospital medicine was a “work in progress.” We may not be perfect today, but we will be better in 90 days and even better in a year.

I have more to say about how we got this far and even more to say about where we might go. So, stay tuned and keep contributing to the future and success of SHM and hospital medicine.

Dr. Wellikson is the CEO of SHM. He has announced his plan to retire from SHM in late 2020. This article is the first in a series celebrating Dr. Wellikson’s tenure as CEO.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2019 (HM19), the largest conference of the year specifically focused on hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine is proud that HM19 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, advanced practice providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM19 demonstrates your commitment not only to the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main meeting on March 25, Marc Harrison, MD, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, will present his featured address on the future of health care. You will also hear from the president of SHM, Nasim Afsar, MD, MBA, SFHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On March 26, we are proud to welcome Tait Shanafelt, MD, from Stanford, who will talk about strategies to prevent burnout and create resilient hospitalists.

On March 25 and 26, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same areas you are. There are more than 30 forums from which to choose. On March 26, SHM will open the International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM19.

Please make sure to download the HM19 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM19 attendee that puts the conference at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one-on-one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM19 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM19 and to the Gaylord at National Harbor. Through this meeting’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, empowering hospitalists and transforming patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2019 (HM19), the largest conference of the year specifically focused on hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine is proud that HM19 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, advanced practice providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM19 demonstrates your commitment not only to the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main meeting on March 25, Marc Harrison, MD, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, will present his featured address on the future of health care. You will also hear from the president of SHM, Nasim Afsar, MD, MBA, SFHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On March 26, we are proud to welcome Tait Shanafelt, MD, from Stanford, who will talk about strategies to prevent burnout and create resilient hospitalists.

On March 25 and 26, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same areas you are. There are more than 30 forums from which to choose. On March 26, SHM will open the International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM19.

Please make sure to download the HM19 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM19 attendee that puts the conference at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one-on-one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM19 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM19 and to the Gaylord at National Harbor. Through this meeting’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, empowering hospitalists and transforming patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2019 (HM19), the largest conference of the year specifically focused on hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine is proud that HM19 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, advanced practice providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM19 demonstrates your commitment not only to the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main meeting on March 25, Marc Harrison, MD, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, will present his featured address on the future of health care. You will also hear from the president of SHM, Nasim Afsar, MD, MBA, SFHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On March 26, we are proud to welcome Tait Shanafelt, MD, from Stanford, who will talk about strategies to prevent burnout and create resilient hospitalists.

On March 25 and 26, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same areas you are. There are more than 30 forums from which to choose. On March 26, SHM will open the International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM19.

Please make sure to download the HM19 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM19 attendee that puts the conference at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one-on-one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM19 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM19 and to the Gaylord at National Harbor. Through this meeting’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, empowering hospitalists and transforming patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), the largest conference ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM18 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM18 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main conference on April 9, Kate Goodrich, MD, MHS, chief medical officer and director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, and a practicing hospitalist, will present her featured address, “Payment Reform is Here: What Hospitalists Need to Know.” You will also hear from the president of SHM, Ron Greeno, MD, FCCP, MHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On April 9, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same things you are. There are 29 forums from which to choose. On April 10, SHM will open the first-ever International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM18.

On April 11, HM18 concludes with the closing keynote, titled “Hospitalists as Drivers of Innovation and System Change: Are We Doing Enough?” presented by Robert M. Wachter, MD, MHM, chief of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of “Hospital Medicine” and “The Digital Doctor.”

Please make sure to download the HM18 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM18 attendee that puts the meeting at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one on one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion, located in the Exhibit Hall, during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM18 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM18 and to Orlando. Through this conference’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, continuing to empower hospitalists and revolutionize patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), the largest conference ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM18 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM18 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main conference on April 9, Kate Goodrich, MD, MHS, chief medical officer and director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, and a practicing hospitalist, will present her featured address, “Payment Reform is Here: What Hospitalists Need to Know.” You will also hear from the president of SHM, Ron Greeno, MD, FCCP, MHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On April 9, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same things you are. There are 29 forums from which to choose. On April 10, SHM will open the first-ever International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM18.

On April 11, HM18 concludes with the closing keynote, titled “Hospitalists as Drivers of Innovation and System Change: Are We Doing Enough?” presented by Robert M. Wachter, MD, MHM, chief of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of “Hospital Medicine” and “The Digital Doctor.”

Please make sure to download the HM18 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM18 attendee that puts the meeting at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one on one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion, located in the Exhibit Hall, during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM18 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM18 and to Orlando. Through this conference’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, continuing to empower hospitalists and revolutionize patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), the largest conference ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM18 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM18 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving health care landscape. To open the main conference on April 9, Kate Goodrich, MD, MHS, chief medical officer and director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, and a practicing hospitalist, will present her featured address, “Payment Reform is Here: What Hospitalists Need to Know.” You will also hear from the president of SHM, Ron Greeno, MD, FCCP, MHM, about the state of hospital medicine.

On April 9, be sure to attend one of SHM’s Special Interest Forums, where you can choose to network and connect with other hospitalists interested in the same things you are. There are 29 forums from which to choose. On April 10, SHM will open the first-ever International Hospital Medicine Lounge. We hope to welcome more than 100 hospitalists from around the world to HM18.

On April 11, HM18 concludes with the closing keynote, titled “Hospitalists as Drivers of Innovation and System Change: Are We Doing Enough?” presented by Robert M. Wachter, MD, MHM, chief of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of “Hospital Medicine” and “The Digital Doctor.”

Please make sure to download the HM18 At Hand meeting app, a wonderful resource for every HM18 attendee that puts the meeting at your fingertips. Create an individualized conference experience from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet one on one with members of SHM’s Board of Directors, who will be available in the SHM Pavilion, located in the Exhibit Hall, during scheduled visit times. Please consult the Meet the Board schedule in the HM18 At Hand app for further information.

On behalf of the SHM Board of Directors and staff, welcome to HM18 and to Orlando. Through this conference’s rich selection of educational opportunities, research offerings, and networking events, SHM continues to further its mission to promote excellence in the practice of hospital medicine. SHM remains at the forefront of health care today, continuing to empower hospitalists and revolutionize patient care.

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2017 (HM17), the largest meeting ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM17 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute-care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM17 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. To open the main meeting on Tuesday, Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, former acting assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, will present her featured address, “Rethinking Health: The Vital Role of Hospitals and the Hospitalist.” On Wednesday, Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, MHM, an SHM member, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deputy administrator for innovation and quality, and director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, will speak about “Health Care System Transformation.”

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2017 (HM17), the largest meeting ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM17 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute-care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM17 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. To open the main meeting on Tuesday, Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, former acting assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, will present her featured address, “Rethinking Health: The Vital Role of Hospitals and the Hospitalist.” On Wednesday, Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, MHM, an SHM member, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deputy administrator for innovation and quality, and director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, will speak about “Health Care System Transformation.”

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.

Welcome to Hospital Medicine 2017 (HM17), the largest meeting ever held specifically for hospital medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is proud that HM17 brings together a broad range of stakeholders in hospital medicine, including physicians of many specialties, acute-care providers, administrators, pharmacists, C-suite executives, recruiters, and educators. Your decision to join your colleagues at HM17 demonstrates your commitment to not only the specialty of hospital medicine but also to the patients you serve.

This year’s renowned speakers will present important sessions addressing the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. To open the main meeting on Tuesday, Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, former acting assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, will present her featured address, “Rethinking Health: The Vital Role of Hospitals and the Hospitalist.” On Wednesday, Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, MHM, an SHM member, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deputy administrator for innovation and quality, and director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, will speak about “Health Care System Transformation.”

Dr. Wellikson is CEO of SHM.