The value of adding hospitalists to the medical staff is the subject of the upcoming Center Voices column provided for Trustee magazine by the Center for Healthcare Governance.

Authored by Larry Wellikson, MD, CEO of the Society of Hospital Medicine, the article illuminates several important points around leadership by hospitalists in the areas of inpatient care and performance improvement. According to Wellikson, most of the 20,000 hospitalists practicing at more than 2,500 hospitals nationwide are initially trained in internal medicine and are young and technology savvy. They not only help save hospitals money by reducing length of stay and ensuring appropriate resource use, but also help increase capacity and patient flow efficiency by facilitating patient transfers and discharges and managing new admissions. They also can help attract and retain key physicians by relieving them of tasks, such as those associated with admitting patients from the Emergency Department and conducting preoperative evaluation of patients’ medical problems.

Because they understand the hospital environment, hospitalists have taken the lead in managing patients from inpatient to outpatient settings, focusing on systems of care. Therefore, they have become central to hospital quality and performance improvement strategies. Leadership provided by hospitalists in improving care systems also can translate into improvements in patient and referring physician satisfaction.

Wellikson notes that boards can help allocate resources to provide the financial, cultural and administrative support hospitalist physicians need to not only provide direct care to hospitalized patients, but also to help further the hospital’s quality and performance improvement agenda.

For more information, be sure to look for the complete article in the June issue of Trustee magazine. Center members can access the article beginning June 1st via the Center's Web site.

Read Archived Center Voices Articles

• Quality Curriculum
  for Trustees (NEW)
• Blue Ribbon Panel on Health Care Governance
• Collaborative
  Leadership Tools
• Governance Assessment
• Resource Repository
• Governance Tools
• Governance Research
• Speakers Express
• Qualified Consultants
• Center Voices Columns
• Trustee Workbooks
• Center Monographs

Center Web site

Quality Curriculum for Hospital and Health Care Trustees

More Information

The Center is proud to spotlight the following member hospitals as recipients of Practice Greenhealth's 2008 Environmental Excellence Awards. Congratulations to:

2008 Environmental Leadership Circle Inductees:
Bronson Methodist Hospital (Kalamazoo, MI)
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (Lebanon, NH)

2008 System for Change Award Recipients:
Covenant Health Systems (Lexington, MA)
Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, CA)
Legacy Health System (Portland, OR)

2008 Making Medicine Mercury Free Award Partners:
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (Brattleboro, VT)
The Jewish Hospital (Cincinnati, OH)

Practice Greenhealth, the result of a recent merger between Hospitals for a Healthy Environment and the Green Guide for Health Care, announced the 2008 award winners on May 20th. The Environmental Excellence Awards recognize 141 hospital and health care organizations for their healthy environmental practices. “Health care organizations from across the country have made the commitment and are making the investment to go green,” said Bob Jarboe, executive director of Practice Greenhealth. The organization plans to plant in India 100 trees for each award recipient to improve the health of the planet. A complete list of winners is available at www.practicegreenhealth.org.

The Center for Healthcare Governance wants members to be as connected as possible to our governance consultants. Being able to ask questions online and receive responses back quickly will ensure you'll find the answers and resources to help you achieve excellence in health care governance.

Please fill out the Center's Ask the Governance Expert online form with your specific question or request, and you will be contacted within 24 hours with a reply. In addition, please feel free to use this form to submit feedback about the Center's services so that we can better serve you.

Please note that this is a member-only resource. Only submissions by Center members will be answered.

The Center for Healthcare Governance developed Speakers Express to help make the high-caliber speakers and presenters found at its national symposia and regional workshops available to organizations throughout the country. Our speakers are proven professionals who are viewed as the "go-to" leaders in their respective fields of expertise, customizing their presentations to fit the unique needs of each organization.

The Center for Healthcare Governance introduces Nathan Kaufman, a nationally renowned expert in the areas of peak performing hospitals and physician groups, hospital strategy, physician compensation, integrated delivery systems, managed care, joint ventures and dispute resolution. Learn more about Nathan Kaufman below:

Nathan Kaufman Speaker Bio Presentation Topics

More Information on the Center's Speakers Express

To view archived editions of the Center's bi-weekly email Center News & Updates, click here.