Background: Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) is one of the newest subspecialties and was recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties in 2016, with its first fellowship programs accredited in 2020. While research barriers in academic medical practice have been identified in prior studies, the facilitators and barriers to research productivity for PHM faculty in the era of board certification are not well described. This study aimed to identify the perceived facilitators and barriers to research productivity among PHM faculty at a large tertiary care children’s hospital. The secondary objective was to investigate potential differences between fellowship-trained and non-fellowship-trained faculty in their perceptions of the facilitators and barriers to research.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was distributed to 68 eligible PHM faculty members from the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine of a large tertiary care children’s hospital. The Institutional Review Board gave approval for exempt status prior to survey distribution. The survey, developed using the Bland model of faculty research productivity as a framework, assessed factors related to mentorship, networking, resource utilization, and training. Data was collected over a 14-week period (March-June 2024) and analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Results: The analysis included 26 completed surveys (38% response rate). Non-clinical time and mentorship emerged as the strongest facilitators. Additional facilitators included research-specific faculty development opportunities, supervised health service research, and administrative research staff support. Research barriers were common, including fragmented non-clinical time, burnout, and limited supporting resources including statistics analysis and data access (Figure 1). There was no statistically significant difference in answers for the most common barriers comparing the fellowship-trained and non-fellowship-trained groups.
Conclusions: This study identifies key facilitators and barriers to research productivity among PHM faculty, highlighting the importance of mentorship, non-clinical time, and resources. These insights suggest actionable strategies to enhance research productivity, including establishing a research Special Interest Group, faculty development programs, and a research consult service. These interventions aim to foster a culture of scholarly productivity within the division and may serve as a model for similar academic pediatric hospital medicine divisions.
