Anna Hemnes' prior leadership experience at Vanderbilt Health includes serving as director of the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine.
To provide effective critical care services, health systems and hospitals need to provide the latest guideline-directed care and assess outcomes, according the new physician-in-chief at Vanderbilt Health.
Anna Hemnes, MD, became physician-in-chief and chair of the Department of Medicine at the health system on Jan. 1. Hemnes has held several leadership positions at Vanderbilt Health, including serving as director of the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine.
At Vanderbilt Health, Hemnes says achieving excellence in critical care includes following the latest guideline-directed care in multiple critical care subspecialties such as surgical critical care, medical critical care, and neurological critical care.
"Staff members work together to understand the best practices for critical care in the different types of critical care that are being delivered," Hemnes says. "That offers an opportunity to build bridges across the entire critical care community as well as to understand how the institution can support critical care from a broad perspective."
Assessing critical care outcomes is crucial for high performance. According to Hemnes, a robust clinical care group will use several metrics to judge their performance.
"There are several key metrics for critical care, and we closely monitor outcomes for common conditions treated in the critical care setting such as sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome," Hemnes says. "The metrics include mortality based on disease severity and hospital length of stay."
Patients and family members should be included in efforts to assess critical care outcomes, Hemnes explains.
"You should measure patient satisfaction with the care they are getting and measure patient satisfaction with care team communication," Hemnes says. "You should conduct surveys of patients and their family members."
Providing effective critical care requires not just looking inside the critical care unit where care is being provided, according to Hemnes.
"You need to know how a critical care unit fits in an institution as well as how patients are referred to you regionally and nationally," Hemnes says.
A CMO or physician-in-chief can play an important role in ensuring that health systems, community hospitals, and academic medical centers provide excellent critical care services, Hemnes explains. It begins with the knowledge about how the institution works and understanding patient flow, the types of critical care being delivered, and the needs of the critical care community.
"This kind of understanding helps to support and advance critical care in the institution," Hemnes says. "A CMO also can bring a broader perspective of the needs of the healthcare community outside of an academic medical center."
Anna Hemnes, MD, is physician-in-chief and chair of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt Health. Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt Health.
Effective Physician Mentorship
There are several factors in successful physician mentorship, including having an experienced and specialized mentor, according to Hemnes.
"The mentor-mentee relationship is also important," Hemnes says. "There should be the right chemistry in the relationship between a mentor and a mentee—they should get along and feel a sense of camaraderie."
Honesty and authenticity should be qualities of both mentors and mentees, Hemnes explains.
"The mentee needs to be honest about what they want," Hemnes says. "The mentor needs to have the freedom to say that the mentee should course-correct in some way or encourage a mentee to pursue one opportunity rather than another. So, the relationship should be bi-directional and based on honesty."
Experience is essential in a good mentor, according to Hemnes.
"An effective mentor has knowledge about the institutional landscape as well as the national and international landscape in the mentee's field," Hemnes says. "Knowledge of the national and international landscape in the mentee's field helps the mentor identify opportunities for a physician outside of their institution."
Other qualities of effective physician mentors include listening skills and the ability to spend time with their mentees, Hemnes says.
Physician Career Development
Hemnes views physician career development through the lens of adult learners.
"In medicine, adult learners are driven by factors such as curiosity about a specific disease, an interest in becoming a medical educator, or a desire to work in medical administration," Hemnes says. "To assist in career development, early career physicians often need exposure to a broad range of topics and different kinds of careers. With that exposure, these physicians should be able to find opportunities that work for them and advance their career."
Institutional leaders can help physicians with career development through mentoring and thoughtful conversations, according to Hemnes.
"This can include opportunities to participate in national organizations, participate in guideline development, participate in research and writing review articles, and participate in giving talks for grand rounds," Hemnes says. "These opportunities need to be tailored to the interests of early career physicians and personalized for their career journeys."
Physician career development requires a bi-directional effort, Hemnes explains.
"The early career physician needs to have opportunities to grow and to reflect on their personal interests," Hemnes says. "A career development leader needs to listen to early career physicians and help guide them to where they want to be."
Mentorship is a primary component of physician career development at Vanderbilt Health.
"In the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt Health, we identify mentors for physicians who are hired for faculty positions," Hemnes says. "For physician-scientists, we pair them with well-established mentors. For physicians who come from outside the institution, we are more flexible in finding mentors who would be a good fit for them."
In addition, the vice chair for faculty affairs in the Department of Medicine runs several societies that have programming directed at the appropriate career stage of physicians and the career track of physicians, Hemnes explains.
"For example, there are societies for clinicians that have lunch lectures and webinars such as medical educator sessions," Hemnes says. "The content is aimed at global topics related to advancing a physician's career."
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Providing effective critical care requires not just looking inside the critical care unit where care is being provided but also understanding how a critical care unit fits in an institution.
In physician mentorship, the mentor-mentee relationship is crucial. They should get along and feel a sense of camaraderie.
It is helpful to view physician career development through the lens of adult learners, who are driven by factors such as curiosity about a specific disease, an interest in becoming a medical educator, or a desire to work in medical administration.