The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) first published The Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine: A Framework for Curricular Development in 2006 to help define the role and expectations of hospitalists. The Core Competencies provide a framework for evaluating clinical skills and professional expertise. Changes in the healthcare landscape and hospitalist practice environment have prompted this revision, published in April 2017. In their roles, hospitalists lead and participate in hospital-based care models that emphasize interprofessional collaboration and a focus on the delivery of high-quality and cost-effective care across a variety of clinical domains (eg, the Choosing Wisely initiative).They are also engaged in patient safety and quality initiatives that are increasingly being used as benchmarks to rate hospitals and as factors for hospital payment (eg, Hospital Inpatient Value-Based Purchasing Program). In fact, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) created a Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine Maintenance of Certification program in response to the growing number of internists choosing to concentrate their practice in the hospital setting. This decision by the ABIM underscores the value that hospitalists bring to improving patient care in the hospital setting. The ABIM also recognizes the Core Competencies as a curricular framework for a focused practice in hospital medicine. Changes within the educational environment have demanded attentive and active participation by many hospitalists. For example, in 2012, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) introduced the Milestones Project, a new outcomes-based framework designed to more effectively assess learner performance across the 6 core competencies. These milestones assessments create intentional opportunities to guide the development of physicians during their training, including in the inpatient environments in which hospitalists practice. Where applicable, existing Core Competencies learning objectives were compared with external sources such as the individual ACGME performance milestones for this revision. The Core Competencies focus on adult hospital medicine. Importantly, the Core Competencies document is not intended to define an absolute set of clinical, procedural, or system-based topics described in textbooks or used by graduate medical education training programs. It does not define or limit the scope of the practice of hospital medicine. Rather, the Core Competencies serve as measurable learning objectives that encourage teaching faculty, practicing hospitalists, and administrators to develop individual skill sets and programs to improve patient care contextualized to the needs of an individual, care setting, or institution. To permit this flexibility, individual chapter-specific objectives are intentionally general in nature. Finally, the Core Competencies document is not a set of practice guidelines, nor does it offer any representation of a "standard of care." Readers are encouraged to explore the article by McKean et al. to review examples of application of the Core Competencies and suggestions for curricular development.

The overall objective of this book is to provide standards for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes expected of all hospitalists and to provide a framework for ongoing professional and curriculum development for learners at all levels. The framework is intended for use by hospital medicine program directors, directors of medical student clerkships, residency programs, fellowships, and continuing medical education, as well as other educators involved in curriculum development. The competencies do not focus on specific content, but rather general learning objectives within the skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to each topic. Attaining competency in the areas defined in these chapters is expected to require post-residency training. This training is most likely to be obtained through a combination of work experience, local mentorship, and engagement in specific educational programs or fellowship. Hospitalists, directors, and educators can create specific instructional activities and methods chosen to reflect the characteristics of the intended learners and context of the practice environment. Within each section, individual chapters on focused topics provide competencies in three domains of educational outcomes: the Cognitive Domain (Knowledge), the Psychomotor Domain (Skills), and the Affective Domain (Attitudes). To reflect the emphasis of hospital medicine practice on improving healthcare systems, a fourth section entitled Systems Organization and Improvement is also included. An attempt has been made to make the objectives timeless, allowing for creation of curriculum that can be nimble and reactive to new discoveries. Although the entire document can be a resource for comprehensive program development, each chapter is intended to stand-alone and thus support curriculum development specific to the needs of individual programs.

The number of practicing pediatric hospitalists is estimated to be approximately 2,500 and rapidly increasing. Furthermore, at least ten fellowships dedicated to advanced training in pediatric hospital medicine have been developed at academic institutions across North America. Despite this growth, there has been an absence of an accepted and peer-reviewed framework for professional and curriculum development. Until now . . . The Pediatric Hospital Medicine Core Competencies, published online in April 20010 as a Supplement of the Journal of Hospital Medicine, is a blueprint to develop standardized curricula for teaching Pediatric Hospital Medicine in medical school, post-graduate (i.e., residency, fellowship), and continuing medical education programs. The competencies standardize expected learning outcomes, but leave it to the curriculum developers and content experts to select instructional strategies, provide relevancy of context, and select the most relevant and up to date medical content. The book contains 54 chapters, divided into four sections: Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions, Specialized Clinical Services, Core Skills, and Healthcare Systems: Supporting and Advancing Child Health. Although the entire document can be a resource for comprehensive program development, each chapter is intended to stand alone and thus support curriculum development specific to the needs of individual programs. In addition, an attempt has been made to make the objectives outlined in each chapter "timeless", allowing for creation of curriculum that can be nimble and reactive to new discoveries.

The definitive guide to the knowledge and skills necessary to practice Hospital Medicine Presented in full color and enhanced by more than 700 illustrations, this authoritative text provides a background in all the important clinical, organizational, and administrative areas now required for the practice of hospital medicine. The goal of the book is provide trainees, junior and senior clinicians, and other professionals with a comprehensive resource that they can use to improve care processes and performance in the hospitals that serve their communities. Each chapter opens with boxed Key Clinical Questions that are addressed in the text and hundreds of tables encapsulate important information. Case studies demonstrate how to apply the concepts covered in the text directly to the hospitalized patient. Principles and Practice of Hospital Medicine is divided into six parts: Systems of Care: Introduces key issues in Hospital Medicine, patient safety, quality improvement, leadership and practice management, professionalism and medical ethics, medical legal issues and risk management, teaching and development. Medical Consultation and Co-Management: Reviews core tenets of medical consultation, preoperative assessment and management of post-operative medical problems. Clinical Problem-Solving in Hospital Medicine: Introduces principles of evidence-based medicine, quality of evidence, interpretation of diagnostic tests, systemic reviews and meta-analysis, and knowledge translations to clinical practice. Approach to the Patient at the Bedside: Details the diagnosis, testing, and initial management of common complaints that may either precipitate admission or arise during hospitalization. Hospitalist Skills: Covers the interpretation of common "low tech" tests that are routinely accessible on admission, how to optimize the use of radiology services, and the standardization of the execution of procedures routinely performed by some hospitalists. Clinical Conditions: Reflects the expanding scope of Hospital Medicine by including sections of Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, Geriatrics, Neurology, Palliative Care, Pregnancy, Psychiatry and Addiction, and Wartime Medicine.

Hospital Medicine is the fastest growing field of Medicine, and the importance of hospitalists in the delivery of care and success of hospitals continues to increase. The practice of hospital medicine is both rewarding and challenging: hospitalists need to provide high-quality care using the best available evidence in an efficient, cost-effective manner. In recognition of the need for rapid access to essential information, this text provides a concise yet comprehensive source for busy clinicians. The Handbook of Hospital Medicine provides detailed reviews of all clinical topics in inpatient medicine, including common diagnoses, hospital- acquired conditions, medical consultation, and palliative care, as well as key non-clinical topics, such as quality improvement tools, approach to medical errors, the business of medicine, and teaching tips. It is the single source needed for hospitalists striving to deliver outstanding care and provide value to their patients and hospitals.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.