Do hospitalists improve patient care, healthcare quality and hospital operations and efficiency? A new assessment tool published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine could help hospitals and hospital medicine groups (HMGs) answer that question.
The tool covers 10 general principals to assess hospitalist programs' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges:
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Effective leadership
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Engaged hospitalists
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Adequate resources
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Effective planning and management infrastructure
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Alignment of hospital medicine groups with hospitals and health systems
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Care coordination
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Consideration of key clinical issues, such as teaching, quality, safety, efficiency and the patient/family experience
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A thoughtful and rational approach to clinical activities
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A practice model that is patient- and family-centered, team-based, and emphasizes effective communication and care coordination
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Recruitment and retention of qualified clinicians
The tool also includes 47 characteristics of successful HMGs that fall under the 10 categories.
The framework should encourage hospital executives and hospitalists to talk to one another about ways to improve the program, the authors said in JHM review. However, they added, hospitals could also use the tool to formally evaluate HMGs based on the characteristics listed in the assessment.
To learn more:
- read the abstract
- here's the announcement