Background: As the landscape of health care access and delivery has changed over the past 10 years, areas of coding, documentation, denials management, appeals, and reimbursement have become more confusing to navigate for most physicians delivering direct patient care. The physician advisor is an experienced physician who understands the rules and regulatory issues involving patient [...]

Background: Our Faculty Development (FD) Program was created to help faculty fulfill professional goals in (and beyond) quality improvement, leadership, education, and clinical skills. Hospital medicine FD may be an effective approach to decrease turnover and improve job retention counter burnout, particularly salient given the unique demands on hospital clinical staff, in a newer specialty [...]

Background: Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) was recognized as its own specialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties in 2016, with the intent to assure “parents, family members and the communities we serve that their physician meets the highest standards of practice and clinical knowledge, and has completed an approved educational program”. Excluding our fellows, [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound training programs (POCUS) have proliferated, but the best method of skills assessment remains unclear. Most published testing protocols assess only image acquisition and interpretation. In a clinical scenario, recognizing an indication for POCUS, selecting the appropriate exam, integrating findings with the other data from the case, and formulating a differential diagnosis and [...]

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) program’s Pathways to Excellence framework includes the expectation that “residents and fellows engage in inter-professional, experiential patient safety event investigations that include analysis” (1, 2). However, as noted by the CLER program national reports, trainee participation in patient safety event analyses [...]

Background: Cross cover as a new intern can be daunting. A 2019 survey of interns across medical specialties showed the majority had no formal cross cover training or experience and felt unprepared to serve in this role. (1) Residencies have been increasing night float experiences and cross cover roles with careful attention to assure duty [...]

Background: Microaggressions (MA) are everyday verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs or insults whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile messages to marginalized people. Microaggressions have been increasingly recognized as harmful to learners in clinical settings, creating a stressful work environment that unfairly erodes learners’ well-being and ability to succeed. Purpose: Our purpose was to [...]

Background: Over 60% of physicians report burnout. This is associated with poorer quality of care, more medical errors, increased physician turnover, substance abuse and increased suicidal ideation. Both physician-directed and organization-directed interventions have shown to improve burnout, with organization-directed providing the most benefit. Activities promoting community-building and physical activity have both been shown to reduce [...]

Background: Design thinking is a framework for creative problem solving. When the design thinking process (often leveraged in fields outside of healthcare delivery) is applied, it leads to a human-centered path to innovation. The infusion of deep empathy, holistic examination, inclusive collaboration, and effective iteration fosters sustainable solutions for complex human concerns. In traditional problem-solving, [...]

Background: Lack of academic productivity poses barriers to the promotion of hospital medicine faculty members at academic medical centers.1,2 New faculty members may face additional challenges with academic promotions due to lack of research productivity and availability of career mentors. Lack of academic funding for early career academic hospitalists has previously been highlighted as a [...]