Background:

Incorporating continuing medical education for hospital medicine programs is an important component of practice development. This can be particularly challenging for practices that do not have access to grand rounds and the usual calendar of educational events traditionally available on academic campuses.

Recognizing the relevance of the Society of Hospital Medicine's The Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine: A Framework for Curriculum Development, our hospital medicine team sought to integrate this framework into our group's ongoing educational opportunities.

Purpose:

The purpose is to describe the implementation of a journal club that incorporates SHM's Core Competencies as an outline for topic selection and a framework for discussion.

Description:

Our hospital medicine clinical team of 12 physicians, 4 physician assistants, and 2 RN clinical care coordinators provides 24/7 coverage for a 385‐bed nonteaching community hospital. Our group embraced the concept of a journal club. We started the club by identifying a physician, who then volunteered to develop the club's structure and define an implementation plan. A different team member takes turns leading each club meeting. A physician assistant (PA) coordinates the club, confirming meeting dates and attendance, selecting topics by collaborating with the session's leader, and e‐mailing journal articles at least 1 week in advance. The administrative director submits an attendance roster and evaluation forms at the end of each club meeting for CME credit.

Conclusions:

Our club meetings provide an opportunity to discuss both individual practice preferences as well as group practice patterns and to relate these to the information presented. This creates a common foundation on which all ourproviders can build a collective fund of knowledge that can be applied to reducing the variability in individual practice in favor of a more standardized, evidence‐based group approach.

Since the club's inception (January 2006), 36 articles have been presented and discussed. We are beginning to more effectively integrate the specific content of each journal article with the learning outcomes that the Core Competencies defines in the domains of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and system organization and improvement. The club is open to all hospital practitioners who want to attend.

Future plans include assessing the efficacy of a Core Competencies‐based journal club as an intervention to reduce individual practitioner variance and as a means to promote a more standardized group practice approach.

Author Disclosure:

D. Barnes, None; S. Blue, None; M. Wilson, None; B. Dlugos, None.