Hospital Medicine Maturity Framework:Proposing a Novel Framework for Defining Stages of Hospital Medicine in Canada. Healthcare Quarterly Vol.14 No.4 2011. While hospitalists and hospital medicine programs are proliferating across Canada, there is little written about them. In this article, the authors propose a conceptual framework for defining stages of development and maturity of hospitalist programs in the Canadian healthcare context. In developing this framework, they have not only relied on personal experience as practising hospitalists and healthcare consultants but have also consulted with leaders of hospital medicine across Canada.
HCS White Papers and Analyses
The Drummond Report: Implementation of Hospitalist Programs Can Help Reduce Healthcare Costs in Ontario. On February 15, 2012, the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services released its highly anticipated report ” Public Services for Ontarians: a Path to Sustainability and Excellence”. Chaired by the renowned economist Don Drummond, the report lays out 362 recommendations aimed at finding efficiencies in all areas of public services, including education and healthcare. The report specifically recommends implementation of hospitalists to help coordinate patient care in acute care settings. You can read our analysis here.
The changing face of health-care in Ontario and its impact on hospitalists. The economic crisis of the past few years has forced health-care payers to focus on efforts to “bend the health-care cost”. In this paper, HCS analyzes some of the proposed new health-care legislations and funding initiatives in Ontario and the opportunities and the challenges they provide for the hospitalist movement in the province.
Hospitalist Scheduling: how can a balance be reached. Arguably, the most time consuming and complex issue facing a hospitalist leader and his or her group is scheduling. Designing a schedule that satisfies every member’s request for holiday and CME time and at the same time meets the coverage requirements of the hospital is surely the most challenging part of running a hospitalist group.In Part 1 of our series on scheduling, we present an overview of some of the important issues that need to be considered for an optimal Hospitalist scheduling system … read more
Workload Models The ability to predict and measure workload is an integral part of running a successful hospitalist program. It has major implications on projecting staffing needs, maintaining equitable and sustainable scheduling, and predicting appropriate compensation levels. Traditionally, there has been little emphasis placed on this type of measurement in medicine. This may in part be the result of the prevailing compensation mechanisms for physicians which up to recently have primarily been.
“The Alberta Perspective: Best Practices Focus on relationships”, Ontario Hospital Association “Hospitalist Programs” conference, January 2010 On January 292010, Dr Mark Evans from Hospitalist Consulting Solutions presented an overview of the hospitalist movement in Alberta to the audience at the OHA conference titled “Hospitalist Programs”. HCS was pleased to be the exclusive sponsor for this event that for the first time brought together hospitalist leaders, hospital administrators and representatives of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario to discuss various aspects of this novel model of care delivery.
“Creating your Own Chrystal Ball” , CSHM Annual Hospitalist Conference, Toronto 2009 On September 25, Dr Mark Evans gave a well received presentation at the Leadership Pre-course of the 7th Annual Hospitalist Conference held in Toronto, Ontario to room full of hospitalist leaders from across Canada. You can read his presentation here on measuring workload, and find more information about our workload tool here. To learn more about workload models, read our white paper here.
Health System Drivers of Hospital Medicine in Canada- a Systematic Review. Vandad Yousefi, Canadian Family Physician July 2013 vol. 59 no. 7. This article aims to identify the underlying systemic drivers of the development and ongoing expansion of hospitalist programs in Canada. Many drivers have been cited in the literature as reasons behind the emergence and growth of the hospitalist model in the Canadian health care system. While their interplay makes simple cause-and-effect conclusions difficult, these drivers demonstrate that hospitalist programs in Canada have developed in response to a complex set of provider, system, and patient factors.
Re-designing Hospital Care: Learning from the Experience of Hospital Medicine in Canada Vandad Yousefi, David Wilton. Journal of Global Health Care Systems, 2011; 1(3). The emergence of the hospitalist model (a model of inpatient care delivery by physicians referred to as hospitalists who spend the majority of their time in the hospital setting) has been a major development in the Canadian healthcare landscape over the past decade. Similar to the United States, the number of hospitalist programs in Canada has grown exponentially since the late 1990’s. More recently, the model is being adopted in other countries such as Singapore and Brazil. The Canadian hospitalist model is still evolving, but its development can provide learning opportunities for policy makers and healthcare practitioners in other countries who are developing their own versions of this health delivery model. Read more.
How Canadian hospitalists spend their time — a work-sampling study within a hospital medicine program in Ontario Vandad Yousefi. Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management.2011;18(4):159-163. Background: Despite significant growth of hospital medicine in Canada over the past decade, little is known about the characteristics of hospitalist pro- grams and how they operate. Objective: To understand the type of activities hospitalists perform and the amount of time they spend on performing various tasks. Methods: Over a 2-week period, a trained observer followed 7 hospitalists for 2-hour blocks during 11 shifts. The shifts were chosen to represent various times of day, evening, weekend, and night call shifts. Activities were recorded using data sheets capturing 1-minute increments, allowing for recording of simultaneous tasks. Activity categories were defined a priori. Read more.
