In barely more than a decade, hospital medicine has gone from a nearly unknown specialty to one of today's hottest new fields. Hospitalists are physicians who provide exclusively in-patient care. Hospitals, managed care companies and sometimes group practices employ them.

The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) and the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) have partnered to bring you the latest news, information, resources, continuing education opportunities and more on this growing specialty. SHM is the largest organization in the nation representing hospitalists and the practice of hospital medicine. MGMA is the premier membership association for professional administrators and leaders of medical group practices.

Quote of Note
From the "Hospitalist Leader" 

"I wouldn't object to having a third party call up to ask on a systematic basis what the hospital team could do better to improve upon the patient experience, but that's an open-ended question motivated by the desire to impact future performance rather than a subtle guilt trip to get discharged patients to rate their hospital stay highly." – Jack Percelay 

SHM's directory of hospitalist-related blogs

Education

From SHM:

Hospitalists & Healthcare Reform: Highlights and Practical Implications for Hospitalists
This On-Demand Webinar provides information and updates on the healthcare reform legislation passed on March 23, 2010, as it relates to the practice of hospital medicine. Content experts review the provisions directly impacting hospitalists, while explaining to attendees the role of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the implementation process. 

From MGMA:

MGMA 2011 Annual Conference

MGMA 2012 Financial Management and Payer Contracting Conference
Feb. 26-28, 2012

Hospitalist Resources

From MGMA:

• Operating Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 3rd edition. Natural disasters, declining reimbursement and more diverse patient populations have made the need for specialized medical practice policies and processes even greater.
  
  
• HR Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 4th edition. Human resource issues in the medical practice setting have a reputation for being more complex than the mainstream; thus, the need for specialized information has never been greater.
  
  
• Electronic Health Records: Transforming Your Medical Practice, 2nd edition. While some electronic health record (EHR) implementations proceed on schedule with the team’s full participation and – seemingly – little effort, others flounder, stall, or struggle, experiencing only limited success or, in extreme cases, no success at all. What accounts for the difference?
  
  
• Medical Fees in the US: 2010 Edition. This book  includes everything you need to review your fees, set fees for new services, challenge low payments from third party payers and evaluate managed care contracts.
  
   
• Data Sanity: A Quantum Leap to Unprecedented Results. Far too much emphasis has been placed on “tools, tools and more tools” (especially statistical techniques), resulting in rampant waste caused by poor everyday organizational use of data. This book offers a new way of thinking via a common organizational language based in process and understanding variation to motivate more productive daily conversations for everyone.
  
  
• Integrated Delivery Systems: Ensuring Successful Physician-Hospital Partnerships. As medical groups, hospitals, and health systems position themselves for the new marketplace, they must be proactive in establishing new relationships and affiliations. Because the outcomes of health system integration vary widely, this book will help steer organizations toward a common purpose – in a way that is meaningful to providers, administrators, and health care leaders, and most of all, to patients.
  
  
• See additional group practice management resources.