The workbooks are posted in the SHM Resource Rooms along with other key resources, including slide sets, bedside teaching tools, patient education literature, CME modules, reviews of key literature, interactive “Ask the Expert” discussion boards, and improvement reports detailing the strategies, successes, and setbacks of other institutions. SHM currently offers resource rooms for Preventing VTE, Heart Failure, Stroke, Discharge Planning for the Elderly, Glycemic Control, and Antimicrobial Resistance. To access the resource rooms, visit our Web site at www.hospitalmedicine.org.

Training Leaders

SHM offers its members diverse training opportunities designed to accommodate the range of knowledge, expertise, and resources available at local institutions. The resource rooms and workbooks described above are made freely available to everyone. At the 2007 SHM Annual Meeting, we will offer a quality pre-course for hands-on training to lead a QI initiative for discharge planning, VTE prevention, or glycemic control.

For SHM members who desire additional support, SHM is developing “Mentored Implementation” and “On-Site Consulting” programs. The Mentored Implementation Program provides enrolled sites with all of the tools described above and an additional yearlong training program conducted via monthly conference calls with SHM mentors and/or one-day training programs. The On-Site Consulting Program surveys an institution’s resources and infrastructure. The SHM consultant team reviews the assessment with the site. Following this assessment, the consultant team visits the site to meet with hospital administrators, QI teams, and others to further assess the site and to help build internal support for the QI initiative. Following the visit, each site receives a customized report detailing recommendations and strategies to advance specific local QI initiatives.

SHM recently launched a Mentored Implementation and On-Site Consulting Program for VTE (known as the SHM VTE Collaborative). Similar programs are scheduled to launch for discharge planning this spring. In the coming years, we hope to add training programs in several other key patient safety areas.

Additionally, SHM is engaged in a strategic planning process to determine how best to attract the highest caliber medical students into hospital medicine and to mentor, train, and retain the next generation of leaders.

In summary, I hope the range of training opportunities and educational programs, the depth of SHM tool kits, and the scope of patient safety initiatives are meeting your needs to plan, implement, evaluate, and sustain positive change at your institution. If you are interested in learning more about SHM QI programs or have suggestions on how we might improve them to better meet your needs, please e-mail me at [email protected].

And, in case you were wondering, I’m making progress on my resolution to run. This year my resolution has the support of my department chairs (Jacob, five; Noah, two), with better-defined outcomes (run three times a week for more than 40 minutes each time), and a better tool kit (gloves, ear muffs). In the planning stage, I addressed my biggest barrier (leave the alarm off) and built a support team (my neighbor joins me).

If you see me at the annual meeting, please let me know how your resolutions are working to prevent DVT or to improve the discharge process, glycemic control, or heart failure care. Or better yet, submit those stories to me to share with members in our “Improvement Stories” or resource rooms Web site areas or in print via The Hospitalist or Journal of Hospital Medicine.

Budnitz is senior advisor, quality initiatives, for SHM.