The Arizona chapter of SHM faced a challenge in 2021 when its founding hospitalists saw their practice shift from inpatient medicine to primary care. At that point, many of the members of the chapter were leaving, which could have been the end of the local chapter.
Enter the new class, including now Vice President Lisa Simmon, MD, MBA, CHCQM, SFHM.

Dr. Simmon
“We went from a group of experienced SHM leaders to having a brand-new leadership team,” said Dr. Simmon, medical director of care coordination at Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix.
It’s working, as the chapter is now flourishing.
First step: events.
“We were looking at it like, we want to keep this chapter going,” Dr. Simmons said. “Slowly, we did. The first year I was secretary, we only had two events. One was virtual because it was during COVID-19. I found some speakers at SHM Converge who I thought gave an awesome talk on documentation, so I said why don’t we bring them in and we can do it virtually? And then we just kept moving forward and growing.”
What’s the motivation for Dr. Simmon, who will be president-elect of the chapter this year?
“There’s a really great opportunity to meet people and to network,” she said. “I like meeting other people from other hospital systems and knowing what the other systems are like. Knowing what resources they have. You can do better for your patients by knowing people outside of your hospital system and being able to leverage other resources that you might not have.”
Admittedly, the chapter had some struggles with the turnover of its board. But where some might see that as a negative, Dr. Simmon takes pride in the new perspectives brought to bear. For instance, the new board changed the length of terms to bring in even more fresh faces.
“Let’s get other people more opportunity for leadership if they want to do it, that’s number one,” she said. “And number two, let’s not burden ourselves where you’re locked in for two years, and if your life changes or something, you’re leaving the chapter high and dry.”
The chapter’s first continuing medical education (CME) event was focused on opioids.
“We did a free opioid CME which got our physicians and advanced practice practitioners 2.5 CME hours, which is great,” Dr. Simmon said. “In the state of Arizona, every two years, when you re-up your medical license, you need to have three hours of CME education on opioids. That was like, rockstar for us to be able to provide.”
Filling a need like that is a goal for the chapter— and not just for CME. The chapter held a session on ethics, for example.
“How often do we have conversations about ethics? Or saying no to patients?” she said. “How do you say no to patients? It’s not just, here’s a lecture on cardiology. Let’s do something super practical. Come have dinner and learn something.”
Late last year, the chapter held what Dr. Simmon called a “mix and mingle,” and it plans more of those simply to bring healthcare workers together.
“There was no education,” Dr. Simmon said. “It was just, come and meet people. One of our board members is from Indian Health Services, and he brought one of his partners. We’ve had more pediatric hospitalists show up. We’ve had a couple of nocturnists, and those guys are hard to get out for anything! We have had some med students and some residents. We’re really trying to push, “Hey, let’s bring in people from across the board.”
It’s part of Dr. Simmon’s continuing focus to “break out of this just-adult-hospital-medicine silo.”
“I’m a physician advisor technically in my full-time job, and I only do clinical medicine like once a month,” she said. “I’ve pushed my other physician advisor colleagues to come to events, too, because they’re a part of hospital medicine. We’re embedded in the hospital. So, I think this team is really focused on showing that it goes beyond just adult hospital medicine…I’ve been at community and academic hospitals in my system, so I reach out to all my partners in my other hospitals. And we have some really great members in our community-based hospitals. We’re literally trying to get anyone and everyone to participate.”
Dr. Simmon and her board aren’t satisfied yet, though. She wants to build the chapter up to four events a year, to the point that hospitalists and hospital medicine-related subspecialties around the state start thinking, “Oh, yeah, there’s an event coming up!”
“The biggest thing is, we, as a chapter and an executive team, really just want to see the chapter continue to grow and thrive and be present,” Dr. Simmon said. “We want to make sure we’re here for the duration and here for other people for the duration.”
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.