The American Diabetes Association has established standards of care for diabetes patients in the hospital setting.
Three dozen hospitals across the country have been recognized for providing care to diabetes patients based on guidelines established by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
For diabetes patients in the hospital setting, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, and glucose variability have been linked to adverse outcomes, including morbidity and mortality, according to a study published by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The ADA says hospitals that follow their guidelines can improve outcomes, shorten hospital stays, and reduce hospital readmissions and emergency department visits.
"We are following the American Diabetes Association standards of care for diabetes patients," says Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, CMO of Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, which is part of Hackensack Meridian Health. "We are using these standards to address all aspects of diabetes care for our patients. This has been a tremendous benefit for our diabetes patients in the hospital setting."
It is meaningful and important for a hospital CMO to be involved in the standard of care for patients with diabetes, according to Pall. The goal is for admitted patients to have a safe and efficient time in the hospital.
"We also want to make sure that the care that is being delivered to patients is based on evidence," Pall says. "We want to make sure that there is evidence that therapy decreases complications."
The ADA standards are helpful because they give hospital clinical teams a roadmap to follow, Pall explains.
"The care teams know that there is a standard way to approach care that is evidence-based and improves outcomes for patients who are affected by diabetes," Pall says.
The ADA standards of care are essential in the management of hospitalized diabetes patients at Denver Health, according to Rocio Pereira, MD, chief of endocrinology at the health system.
"We regularly review the American Diabetes Association's standards of care to make sure we are following recommendations," Pereira says. "As those standards of care change, we make sure we are keeping up to date with the newest recommendations."
Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, is CMO of Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center. Photo courtesy of Hackensack Meridian Health.
Examples of following the ADA guidelines
The ADA standards guide hospitals in managing glucose variability in the hospital setting.
"We provide a lot of education to our providers who are putting in the orders for different medications that can affect patients' insulin sensitivity and glucose level," Pereira says. "For example, we make sure that providers are aware that when they start a patient on a steroid medication, it can increase the patient's glucose level."
Multidisciplinary teams are focused on managing glucose variability among diabetes patients at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, according to Pall.
"Our clinical diabetes advocates, which include diabetes educators, are consistently looking at the reports of patients who are admitted to the hospital," Pall says. "They measure and monitor glucose levels as well as hemoglobin A1C with the endocrinologists as appropriate."
The ADA guidelines call for providing a personalized approach to managing glucose levels that are outside the normal range among diabetes patients, since no two patients are alike.
"Although we have protocols and order sets, we also know that these patients' blood sugar levels are not always going to do what we think they are going to do," Pereira says. "It depends on factors such as their insulin sensitivity and the medications that are being used. So, we make sure that the care teams are trained to know the factors that affect blood sugar."
It is important to involve patients and families in the care that is provided to diabetes patients in the hospital setting, according to Pall.
"The multidisciplinary teams that we have consisting of endocrinologists, diabetes educators, nurses, and dietitians must involve the patient and the family as they discuss options related to their care," Pall says. "That is how we can ensure that our care comes across as being personal and not just a standard cookbook of treatment options."
The ADA guidelines call on hospitals to have structured order sets in their electronic health records that provide guidance for the care of diabetes patients in the inpatient setting.
Denver Health has structured order sets in the health system's EHR, including an order set for managing blood sugar. That order set helps providers know the options for the types of insulin that can be used for a particular patient.
"Having order sets in the EHR makes it much easier for the providers to know what they should order for patients depending on different conditions," Pereira says. "The order sets are great to educate our providers, including residents and fellows."
Having structured order sets in the EHR is crucial for diabetes and its management, according to Pall, especially because the insulin dosages can change depending on a patient's medications.
"The order sets for diabetes care in the hospital are well designed and standardized," Pall says. "We have discharge order sets as well. We have guidelines associated with the order sets, so it is obvious for clinicians who are using these order sets to know the parameters for their use."
Having structured order sets in the EHR is important for care teams to have a standard way to approach diabetes care, Pall explains.
"In the absence of structured order sets, things could get missed or the parameters for certain therapies could be variable," Pall says. "It is important to keep care consistent, so we are giving the right treatment to the right patient."
The ADA guidelines call on hospitals to have specialized care teams for their patients who have diabetes.
"Clinical diabetes advocates are a cornerstone of our specialized diabetes care team," Pall says. "They partner effectively with our endocrinologists, nurses, patient experience liaisons, case managers, and dietitians."
Having a specialized care team for hospital patients with diabetes boosts the quality of care and improves outcomes, Pall explains.
"Diabetes is a complex condition," Pall says. "These patients have multiple medical, social, and dietary needs. Having a team to address all aspects of a patient's care—not just the medical aspect—is important. We want to provide care that is personalized and geared toward the needs of the patient."
Health equity is a primary concern at Metropolitan Hospital, which serves a diverse community in New York City.
The new CMO of Metropolitan Hospital, which is part of NYC Health + Hospitals, is committed to health equity.
Anitha Srinivasan, MD, MPH, became CMO of Metropolitan Hospital effective June 1. She has held several leadership positions at the hospital, including serving as deputy CMO and chief experience officer. Srinivasan has a clinical background in surgery.
"Promoting health equity is the very core of our mission," Srinivasan says. "Metropolitan Hospital is part of a safety net health system. We are in a vibrant neighborhood, East Harlem, which is very diverse."
The approach to health equity at Metropolitan Hospital is multipronged, according to Srinivasan.
"We need to understand the community around us and the social determinants of health," Srinivasan says. "We need to look at some of the non-medical factors such as mental health issues, housing and food insecurity, and transportation barriers for the community."
The hospital strives to provide culturally competent care. All staff are trained to be culturally sensitive, according to Srinivasan.
"We provide multilingual services—we always give importance to language of preference among the patients," Srinivasan says. "All the medical education literature, the consent forms, and the documents that the patient signs are in the patient's language of preference. So, the patient understands what treatment they're getting."
The hospital places a high priority on looking at data through a health equity lens. Srinivasan explains that health equity data gives leadership an opportunity to think outside the box and innovate with the patient population in mind.
"For example, when we look at a particular service, we like to break down the health equity points," Srinivasan says. "Who is coming here for services? How are we providing these services? What are the differences?"
Anitha Srinivasan, MD, MPH, is the new CMO of Metropolitan Hospital in New York City. Photo courtesy of NYC Health + Hospitals.
Developing a clinical services business plan
Srinivasan has been involved in crafting clinical services business plans for Metropolitan Hospital.
"What we need to do is robust clinical business planning because it is essential for financial health and sustainably," Srinivasan says. "It may appear strange that I'm talking about financial health for a safety net system, but we must be at least sustainable."
The key elements of developing a clinical services business plan include market analysis and community needs assessments, according to Srinivasan.
"We plan our expansions and services according to the needs of the community, so that we are sustainable as a hospital and have strategic alignment," Srinivasan says. "According to the market analysis and needs assessment, we do the hospital's resource allocation."
Metropolitan Hospital has a five-year model for clinical services business planning.
"We can manage expanding a particular service," Srinivasan says. "We take the buy-in from the clinicians. We see if there's a need in the community, then expand a service. The administrators come up with a strategic plan, including input from doctors and nurses, then we present the strategic plan to the hospital's leadership. Once the strategic plan is approved, we are tracked for the next five years."
Clinical services business planning never trumps crucial clinical goals such as patient safety, but running a hospital is similar to running a business, according to Srinivasan.
"It's almost like a commercial enterprise, except we do it with the aim of being sustainable financially and serving the community and improving access," Srinivasan says. "That's where business planning is very important, even if we are a safety net hospital."
Promoting quality assurance
As deputy CMO and now as CMO, Srinivasan has been involved in quality assurance efforts.
"Quality assurance is an ongoing commitment to say we will deliver the highest standard of patient care irrespective of the ability to pay," Srinivasan says. "That is our mission."
A hospital's leadership team must be committed to quality assurance, according to Srinivasan.
"The success of any quality assurance program begins with leadership," Srinivasan says. "We should be good leaders and strive for good quality, and then we can create a culture of safety."
Metropolitan Hospital's approach to quality assurance is data-driven.
"We use data collection through a reporting system where anybody can report any concerns and then we do an analysis," Srinivasan says. "We come up with quality assurance projects for every department so that we can provide consistent, high-quality care."
Keys to success in risk management
Srinivasan plays a significant role in risk management at Metropolitan Hospital.
"I still run the root cause analysis process," Srinivasan says. "It involves identifying and mitigating potential threats to patient safety. That's a primary goal—patient safety."
The hospital has a reporting system for patient safety events that can be used by any staff member.
"When reports come in, we do a daily analysis, and relevant reports are presented to a committee that includes nurses and doctors," Srinivasan says. "When errors occur, we provide staff training, but in a nonpunitive fashion. We look for systemic errors."
Maintaining a nonpunitive workplace environment is essential to promote patient safety because staff members should not feel discouraged to report errors in the future, Srinivasan says, adding leaders have a critical role to play in establishing a nonpunitive workplace environment.
"We try to support our staff, so they don't feel like they're being blamed or cornered," Srinivasan says. "Everybody who sits on the root cause analysis committee goes through training, so we know not to blame an individual for a mistake. We look at systemic causes first so we can improve as a system."
Carilion Clinic has mastered the intricacies of operating a command center that focuses on managing patient transfers between hospitals.
Like many health systems across the country, Carilion Clinic is grappling with patient volumes that stretch bed capacity. Under these circumstances, managing patient flow and patient transfers into and out of the health system are crucial.
"We have real-time assessment of every hospital bed in the health system, including emergency departments," says Paul Haskins, MD, SVP medical director of the Carilion Transfer and Operations Center. "So when you have an enterprise command center, it has all aspects of patient flow, including a real-time situational awareness of the primary drivers of hospital systems, which include the transfer process into the system, the operating rooms, and the emergency departments."
View the HL Shorts video below to find out how Carilion Clinic has staffed its command center in a cost-effective manner. Click here to read the accompanying HealthLeaders story.
A first-in-the-nation position plays a key role in helping new moms who are struggling with mental health conditions.
Dartmouth Health Children's has created what it says is the first maternal mental health navigator role in the nation.
Mental health can be a challenge for new moms. Their mental health conditions include anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mental health conditions are a leading cause of suicide among new moms.
"Recognizing that these conditions can be treated is a huge part of the puzzle for new moms—many of them do not recognize that they are experiencing a maternal mental health disorder," says Heather Martin, the new maternal mental health navigator at Dartmouth Health Children's.
Martin is serving in a year-long pilot program that began three months ago. The position is being funded through a philanthropic fund maintained by Dartmouth Health.
"The main goal of funding Heather's position was to test and pilot as well as create a model that is sustainable by figuring out the billing, figuring out the processes of interacting with obstetrics, and making sure you are protecting maternal privacy," says Julie Bosak, DrPH, a certified nurse-midwife at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and director of the New Hampshire Perinatal Quality Collaborative and the Northern New England Perinatal Quality Improvement Network.
The maternal mental health navigator role involves several responsibilities, including connecting struggling new moms with resources in the community, arranging peer support, providing strategies to cope with anxiety and stress, and supporting pediatricians and obstetricians who work with new moms.
Martin has a designated resource list, which includes mental health centers such as the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester and psychiatrists at Dartmouth Health.
Dartmouth Health has been screening new moms for mental health conditions for five years.
"It is a quick questionnaire on a tablet, and moms do it before a baby visit," Martin says. "If that questionnaire comes back positive, and if a mom is open to help, resources, or just talking with me, they get connected to me and connected to resources such as therapy. Sometimes, the moms just talk with me and have someone to listen to their concerns."
Martin also plays a role in preventative care.
"Heather is able to work with moms before a condition escalates and becomes overwhelming," Bosak says.
The maternal mental health navigator position was created as part of Dartmouth Health Children's recognition that the postpartum period can be difficult for new moms and their families.
"Beyond the diagnoses, it is important for new moms and families to recognize that the postpartum period can be an emotionally challenging time," says Erik Shessler, MD, associate medical director at Dartmouth Health Children's. "You are in the hospital, you come home, and you are going to be sleep-deprived. We let new moms know that we expect them to be emotional and that we are here to help."
Heather Martin is the new maternal mental health navigator at Dartmouth Health Children's. Photo courtesy of Dartmouth Health.
Creating and expanding maternal mental health navigators
Dartmouth Health Children’s identified the need for a maternal mental health navigator through its screening program.
"We started asking questions, having some data showing that there was a need for services, and creating resources to support those needs that were identified," Shessler says.
The pilot program will hopefully serve as a springboard for similar programs across New Hampshire, he adds.
"We are going to have data that shows the maternal mental health navigator makes a difference because it has an impact on metrics and outcomes," Shessler says. "Then we will be able to bring this model across the Dartmouth health system and across the state."
Shessler also has national aspirations for the program.
"It is our hope that other health systems and children's hospitals across the country will adopt maternal mental health navigators," Shessler says. "There are some other health systems in the state that are doing screening as a first step. They are having their healthcare professionals increase their awareness, and they are conducting screening in either obstetrics care or pediatric care."
Primary care physicians at the Boston-based health system have voted overwhelmingly to join a national union.
One of the organizers of a primary care physician union at Mass General Brigham (MGB) is hailing the recent vote to form the union as a resounding success.
PCPs at MGB have been seeking to form a union for a year. MGB challenged the unionization effort at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on the basis that many of the doctors did not belong in the same bargaining unit. The NLRB rejected MGB's challenge in April, but the health system is continuing to push the point with the federal agency.
On May 30, the PCPs voted 183-26 to join Doctors Council SEIU, the country’s oldest and largest union of attending physicians.
Michael Barnett, MD, a primary care physician at Brigham and Women's Advanced Primary Care Associates and a member of the PCP union's organizing committee, says the vote represents overwhelming support for the union.
"We had 209 ballots submitted for 237 eligible PCPs. So, our turnout was 88%," Barnett says. "The turnout was high, and those who voted support what we are doing."
MGB commented on the union vote in a prepared statement.
"Mass General Brigham respects the rights of employees to organize under the National Labor Relations Act, and we are committed to ensuring that any such process complies with applicable labor law," the statement says. "Prior to this vote, we formally requested the National Labor Relations Board to review whether the composition of the proposed bargaining unit is appropriate under the law for acute care hospitals, and we await their decision."
The prepared statement says the health system is committed to providing primary care services.
"We deeply value our physicians and have been working since fall of 2023 to improve the primary care experience based on direct physician feedback," the statement says. "Our ongoing investment in primary care reflects this long-term commitment to improving the experience of both our physicians and the patients they serve."
Michael Barnett, MD, is a primary care physician at Brigham and Women's Advanced Primary Care Associates. Photo courtesy of Michael Barnett.
Why PCPs want to have a union
There are several reasons why most PCPs at MGB support forming a union, according to Barnett.
"Most importantly, we want to make sure that primary care has a seat at the table for leadership decisions," Barnett says. "Part of what has led us to this point is a feeling of disempowerment and an inability to have a say in how investments or lack of investments in primary care are directed."
Barnett cited many other reasons for PCP support of the unionization effort.
Concern over understaffing and high staff turnover
A belief that PCP patient panel sizes are unrealistic
A desire to align benefits and compensation with national standards, particularly given the high cost of living in the Boston area
MGB has cut benefits for employees who work less than half time, which disproportionately affects PCPs
The absence of a structured system for PCP coverage when doctors go on leave such as parental leave, which requires the remaining doctors to pick up more patient visits without a corresponding increase in compensation
MGB has discontinued services that helped support primary care practices and their patients such as programs that helped patients manage their blood pressure and cholesterol remotely as well as a smoking cessation program
The PCPs are also wary of a pledge from MGB to invest $400 million in primary care, Barnett explains.
"MGB has made this unforced pledge of putting $400 million into primary care over the next five years," Barnett says. "We want to have input into how that money is spent, and we want to hold MGB accountable for making sure the health system is spending money in ways that improve the lives of our physicians and patients as well as improve our clinics."
State of labor relations among the PCPs
PCPs are discouraged that MGB has shown resistance to their unionization effort, according to Barnett.
"It is particularly disappointing now that we have had an election, and we have a resounding mandate, with nearly nine of 10 of our colleagues supporting the union," Barnett says. "MGB is still sticking to the narrative that they need to define our bargaining unit legally, which is taking advantage of an anachronistic technicality."
Many MGB physicians feel that the health system's leadership is moving in the wrong direction, Barnett explains.
"PCPs as well as many other doctors in the health system are skeptical that we are moving in a direction that is in the best interest of patients or doctors in the health system," Barnett says. "They have lost our trust. Because they are not responding to us and they have lost our trust, we need to demand a seat at the table and have more control over what happens."
Knowing your market and enlisting primary stakeholders early in the process is essential to expanding service lines, this hospital CMO says.
One of the top priorities of the new CMO at AdventHealth Celebration hospital will be to expand tertiary service lines.
Omayra Mansfield, MD, MHA, was recently named as CMO of AdventHealth Celebration hospital. She has worked in several leadership positions at AdventHealth, most recently serving as vice president and CMO of AdventHealth Apopka hospital. Mansfield has a clinical background in emergency medicine.
Part of the key to success in expanding tertiary service lines is identifying market needs and what the community requires at the local level, according to Mansfield.
"So many people have complex medical conditions, and as we consider how we provide whole-person care, we have to recognize that that involves providing more complex care closer to home," Mansfield says.
To expand tertiary service lines, a CMO must bring in primary stakeholders early in the process, Mansfield explains.
"There are key physician partners, nursing partners, and ancillary services partners," Mansfield says. "You need to have a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to expand service lines with high quality."
The participation of physician leaders is crucial when a tertiary service line is expanded, according to Mansfield.
"We want to have our physician leaders at the table to help us understand what quality looks like and to have them be champions for quality as we engage the other members of the service line team such as ancillary partners," Mansfield says.
Leadership is not a skill that is taught at most medical schools, so AdventHealth has a leadership development program for physicians and their primary partners. The program has courses that have been developed at the division and corporate level.
"This training is not only for physicians but also for administrative partners, so that we can build relationships," Mansfield says. "Physicians need to know how to partner with an administrator in a dyad to make sure that they both have clarity of purpose, an understanding of the goals they are trying to accomplish, and the ability to leverage each other's strengths."
Omayra Mansfield, MD, MHA, is the new CMO of AdventHealth Celebration hospital. Photo courtesy of AdventHealth.
Promoting patient experience
In addition to expanding tertiary service lines at AdventHealth Celebration, Mansfield has been charged with improving patient experience.
In the hospital setting, it is imperative for physicians and nurses to work together to boost patient experience, according to Mansfield.
"The reality is that if we work in nursing and physician siloes, we will not get a good patient experience outcome," Mansfield says. "At the end of the day, the patient wants to see nurses, physicians, and the rest of the care team working cohesively to advance their care. So, the RN-MD relationship is critical for patient experience."
One of the ways Mansfield promoted a good patient experience at AdventHealth Apopka was through effective RN-MD rounding at the bedside. In RN-MD rounding, a patient's nurse and physician work as a team, connecting in advance before going into the patient's room.
"They should make sure they know everything there is to know about the patient," Mansfield says. "They need to go into the patient's room as a unified team to the benefit of the patient. They go into the room and have a care conversation."
The nurse and the physician should talk about how they are qualified to provide great care, Mansfield explains.
"If the nurse has worked with the physician before and knows the physician is a great doctor, they should say that to the patient, and vice versa," Mansfield says. "The care conversation should not only be clinically driven but also demonstrate a sense of confidence in the team."
Prepared for success as CMO
Mansfield says her clinical background in emergency medicine has been instrumental in her ability to serve well in the CMO role.
"At AdventHealth, our CMOs come from several specialties, and I love the diversity in our CMO group," Mansfield says. "But for me specifically, what attracted me to emergency medicine was that in an emergency setting you want a physician who can remain calm despite chaos. You want a physician who can prioritize what to do when there are myriad variables."
Serving as an emergency medicine physician and a hospital CMO are similar in important respects, according to Mansfield.
"I started working as a CMO on Feb. 2, 2020. The World Health Organization identified COVID as a new pathogen on Jan. 31, 2020," Mansfield says. "It was the right moment to leverage the skillset of keeping calm despite chaos and uncertainty. That skillset has carried me through my CMO journey."
Emergency medicine physicians are good generalists, but they often rely on subject matter experts to care for patients, which is an excellent experience to have as a CMO, Mansfield explains.
"Part of the skillset of an emergency medicine physician is bringing in experts as needed to help inform and guide decision-making," Mansfield says. "Being able to navigate relationships and conversations is an asset in the CMO role."
A robust command center has helped Carilion Clinic manage its stretched hospital bed capacity.
Carilion Clinic has mastered the intricacies of operating a command center that manages patient transfers into and out of the health system.
Like many health systems across the country, Carilion Clinic is grappling with patient volumes that stretch bed capacity. Under these circumstances, managing patient flow and patient transfers into and out of the health system are crucial.
"We have real-time assessment of every hospital bed in the health system, including emergency departments," says Paul Haskins, MD, SVP medical director of the Carilion Transfer and Operations Center. "So when you have an enterprise command center, it has all aspects of patient flow, including a real-time situational awareness of the primary drivers of hospital systems, which include the transfer process into the system, the operating rooms, and the emergency departments."
Click here to view the accompanying HealthLeaders story.
Embedding behavioral health professionals in primary care practices drives significant benefits for patients and health systems.
Providing patient access to behavioral health services is a challenge for health systems. Virtua Health is taking on this challenge by integrating those services with primary care providers.
For patients, one of the benefits of embedding behavioral health professionals in primary care practices is reducing the stigma of seeking behavioral healthcare, says Samuel Weiner, MD, vice president and CMO of Virtua Medical Group, which is part of Virtua Health.
"By embedding psychiatrists in our primary care practices, patients don't have to worry that they have been referred to a psychiatrist's office or a therapy office," he says. "They are just going to their primary care office."
View the video below to find out about Virtua Health's model for embedding mental health professionals in primary care practices. Click here to read the accompanying HealthLeaders story.
A month-long rotation program gives residents experience in what it is like to live and work in a rural community.
Sanford Health and Hennepin Healthcare have established a rural rotation program to encourage medical residents to practice in rural communities.
About 20% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas but only 9% of the country's physicians practice in rural communities, according to the Bureau of Health Professions. A study published in Annals of Emergency Medicine found that 92% of emergency physicians practice in urban areas.
Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare, which includes a 484-bed academic medical center, is sending emergency medicine and psychiatry residents on a month-long rotation to Sanford Health Bemidji in northern Minnesota. Sanford Health Bemidji includes Sanford Bemidji Medical Center.
Bemidji, Minnesota, has a population of nearly 16,000 and is surrounded by rural communities.
The rural rotation is designed to give residents experience in living and working in a rural setting.
"Most residents do not know what it is like to practice medicine in a rural hospital," says Daniel Hoody, MD, CMO of Sanford Health Bemidji. "In addition, if residents practice in an urban area, they are not well-equipped to understand what it is like to send a patient from a rural area into an urban center."
Unlike other rural residency programs across the county, where residents drive from an urban center to a rural hospital then drive home at night, the Bemidji program provides residents with an immersive experience. The program provides housing for residents in a welcoming environment, according to Meghan Walsh, MD, MPH, chief academic officer at Hennepin Healthcare.
"Residents go to and from the hospital every day, then at the end of the month, the residents return to their regular programming in Minneapolis," Walsh says. "We are already seeing that one month of a lived-in experience is leading to an interest in practicing in Bemidji and other rural communities."
The program separates the myths and truths about physicians living and working in a rural community.
"It is more exciting for the residents than they might have anticipated," Hoody says. "There are things going on in town, and we try to get the residents engaged in some of the things people experience if they live in town their whole lives."
The program shows residents that there is a good quality of life in a rural community. Hoody believes that it's easy to achieve work-life balance when you are not tethered to traffic or other discomforts of a big city.
"I like to tell recruits that you can do two things after work rather than one in Bemidji," Hoody says. "You can ski for an hour or two, go home and shower, then still have time to go out for dinner with friends. That is often not tenable in a major metropolitan area."
Daniel Hoody, MD, is CMO of Sanford Health Bemidji. Photo courtesy of Sanford Health.
Exposure to rural medicine
The Bemidji program gives residents exposure to the practice of medicine in rural areas and dispels misconceptions about what it is like to practice in a rural community.
In Bemidji, residents learn how to practice medicine with limited resources compared to practicing in an urban center, according to Walsh.
"If a patient falls and hits their head, they can have a brain bleed. In our Level 1 trauma center, literally within 10 minutes at the bedside, you can have a neurologist, a neurosurgeon, a trauma surgeon, an internist, and a critical care team for the patient," Walsh says. "At Bemidji, it is different. You do not have every single Level 1 trauma center resource at your fingertips within 10 minutes."
Many residents assume that they will be treating low acuity patients in a rural setting, but the Bemidji program shows them that rural medicine can be a challenging experience, Walsh explains.
"Residents have been ending their month-long rotation with an appreciation for the complexity, acuity, and challenge of treating patients at Sanford," Walsh says. "They feel their Level 1 trauma center skills were taken to the edge of their comfort zone, with supervision and appropriate support."
The Bemidji program residents learn how to treat patients safely in a rural setting as well as the value of treating patients close to home rather than transferring them to larger medical facilities, according to Hoody.
"The residents bring the latest and greatest care from an academic medical center to Bemidji, and they learn from the decades of experience on the ground at Bemidji to take care of patients when you have limited resources," Hoody says.
When it comes to acute care, the decision to transfer patients from Bemidji to a larger medical facility is not taken lightly, Hoody explains.
"It's a huge deal if we have to transfer a patient to Fargo," Hoody says. "The whole family must go over and stay at a hotel. They must take days off from work. It's better if we can keep patients here in Bemidji."
Bolstering Sanford Health Bemidji's staff
Hoody hopes the rotation program will help fill a need at Sanford Health Bemidji.
"Emergency medicine and psychiatry are areas of recruiting need," Hoody says. "For both emergency medicine and psychiatry, we are not fully staffed with employed clinicians, so this program is a nice adjunct to other recruiting efforts by exposing residents to rural medicine."
The partnership with Hennepin Healthcare gives Sanford Health Bemidji a capability that would be hard to achieve on its own. According to Walsh, the model is leveraging the strengths of an urban teaching hospital and a rural community that does not have the infrastructure, resources, and personnel to build their own teaching hospital.
"There is data to show that as few as one or two months of a rural experience for residents is enough to create interest in practicing in a rural setting," Walsh says. "We are testing this hypothesis."
The rural rotation program is giving Sanford Health Bemidji a chance to recruit more residents as employed physicians than they could do with their own residency programs, according to Walsh.
"If Sanford Health Bemidji had an emergency medicine residency, it would be a three-year program and probably have a couple of residents each year," Walsh says. "Every three years, there would be about six residents who came through Bemidji, and you may or may not be able to recruit all six of them to remain in Bemidji."
With the rural rotation program, Sanford Health Bemidji is working with 12 emergency medicine residents per year.
"In one year, there is the potential to recruit about six ER doctors at lower cost and lower investment than an in-house emergency residency program," Walsh says. "This allows Bemidji to put its energy into faculty recruitment and boost physician recruitment in general because physicians get to teach."
Advocate Health is using volunteers to help improve the patient experience for inpatients.
Bradley Kruger, MA, MBA, vice president for patient experience at Advocate Health says the Charlotte, North Carolina-based health system is using volunteers to contact patients after they have been hospitalized to see whether they need help in the inpatient setting.
"At Advocate Health, we have more than 10,000 volunteers who contribute more than 500,000 hours of effort every year," Kruger says. "That time supports patients at the bedside—we are using the volunteers to improve patient experience, quality, and safety across the organization."
One volunteer initiative uses 100 virtual volunteers who are mainly pre-med students.
"They learn how to navigate Epic and how to talk with patients," Kruger says. "They call patients within 24 hours of them being admitted to a hospital, mostly patients over the age of 65 who have been admitted from the emergency room."
Click on the video below to see how the volunteer initiative works. Click here to read the accompanying HealthLeaders story.
Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, is CMO of Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center. Photo courtesy of Hackensack Meridian Health.
Anitha Srinivasan, MD, MPH, is the new CMO of Metropolitan Hospital in New York City. Photo courtesy of NYC Health + Hospitals.
Heather Martin is the new maternal mental health navigator at Dartmouth Health Children's. Photo courtesy of Dartmouth Health.
Omayra Mansfield, MD, MHA, is the new CMO of AdventHealth Celebration hospital. Photo courtesy of AdventHealth.
Daniel Hoody, MD, is CMO of Sanford Health Bemidji. Photo courtesy of Sanford Health.