Background: Increasingly, hospitals and health systems have looked to hospital medicine physicians to lead initiatives, locally and on a broader level. At our institutions, two 600+ bed, academic, tertiary care medical centers located outside of New York City, members of our 120-physician hospital medicine group (HMG) are often asked to champion initiatives aimed at quality/process improvement, resident and medical student education, and hospital operations. Although most of our team members currently identify as holding at least one leadership position, only 15% of our group has received formal leadership training. That said, over 80% of our group reports being interested in formal leadership training.

Purpose: ​Our initiative aimed to provide structured leadership training to a cohort of hospital medicine physicians within our division. Participants would include those currently leading initiatives and those aspiring for future leadership roles. We hoped to create a program by hospitalists, for hospitalists, that not only provided education on necessary leadership principles, but also opportunities to network with local leaders and to better understand ongoing initiatives within our health system.

Description: Conceptual design began in mid-2020 by a group of hospitalists that had previously received formal leadership training. A survey was sent out to our HMG constituents to determine overall interest level, ideas for topics to be covered, and structure of the course.​An 18-month-long Hospital Medicine Leadership Development Program (HLDP) was conceived in early 2021 and implemented in mid-2021. Applications for the program were submitted by interested hospitalists and reviewed by site leadership. A total of 12 hospitalists between our two facilities were chosen to participate.The program consists of 10 monthly didactics/small-group activities led by divisional and hospital leaders on a variety of topics such as leadership styles, conflict resolution, and how to effectively lead meetings. Following each session, participants are surveyed to determine if the session met their needs.A collection of high-yield articles, books, and podcasts was also assembled and made available to the group for supplemental learning.Each participant was invited to complete an emotional intelligence questionnaire, complete with scoring and individualized recommendations for improvement, with an opportunity to reassess at the end of the HLDP.In addition, each participant was assigned two mentors, one within our hospitalist division and one outside of our group with significant leadership experience and expertise within a field of interest expressed by the learner. These mentorship assignments seek to accelerate the design and implementation of a Capstone project aimed at improving the quality of care delivered within our division and hospitals, to be presented upon completion of the HLDP.

Conclusions: Midway through our first cohort, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from our learners. We have been successful in facilitating interdisciplinary mentorship arrangements with key leaders at our sites, which we believe will both strengthen relationships and lead to future innovations between our teams. Seeing the value of our program, executive leaders at our sites have invested time and resources to help support our initiative. We feel strongly that the HLDP has met a previously unmet need within our group and will be a key component of future recruitment, retention and expansion strategies.