Society Of Hospital Medicine Recognizes the Ucsd Team Headed by Greg Maynard, Md, Msc with the Team Approaches in Quality Improvement Award

Maynard presented with SHM’s first-ever, Team Approaches in Quality Improvement Award.

PHILADELPHIA (April 23, 2008) – The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) recently presented Greg Maynard, MD, MSc and his team, with its newest honor, the Team Approaches in Quality Improvement Award, at Hospital Medicine 2008, SHM’s annual meeting, held earlier this month in San Diego, California. The award was given in recognition of the team’s approach to designing a Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) prevention protocol.

Members of the team, from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), included Ian Jenkins, MD, Sarah Stone, MD, Josh Lee, MD, Tim Morris, MD, Peter Fedullo, MD, Robert Schoenhaus, PharmD, Doug Humber, PharmD, Marian Renvall, Pat Cal, Ed Fink, and Isabella London. The project, titled Optimizing Prevention of Hospital-Acquired Venous Thromboembolism, has now been implemented at over 25 sites. By using proven performance improvement methodology, and a multidisciplinary team structure, this UCSD team designed a VTE Prevention protocol for all adult inpatients at their academic center. The protocol integrated a simple VTE risk assessment with a menu of prophylaxis options preferred at each level of risk. This approach substantially reduced the number of preventable blot clots and saved lives and money.

“SHM recognizes that optimum health care is a team sport. The success of Maynard’s team at UCSD is a fine example of how hospitalists along with the entire hospital-based care team, will be at the forefront of the next generation of health care delivery. Hospitalist leaders all over the country are leading teams of health professional that are working hard to improve quality in our nation’s hospitals. SHM is proud to present Dr. Maynard and his team with our first-ever Team Approaches in Quality Improvement Award,” said Larry Wellikson, MD, SHM’s chief executive officer.

Dr. Maynard is a professor of clinical medicine and chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Over 3 years of study, the number of patients at the test hospitals suffering from hospital-acquired VTE decreased dramatically and the percentage of patients with adequate VTE prophylaxis regimens increased from 55 percent to 98 percent.

The Society of Hospital Medicine is the premier medical society representing hospitalists, physicians whose primary focus is the care of hospitalized patients. Over the past decade, research studies proving that hospitalists decrease patient lengths of stay, hospital costs and patient mortality rates while increasing patient satisfaction, have galvanized the hospital medicine profession and spurred demand for hospitalists nationwide. Currently, hospital medicine is the fastest-growing medical specialty in the U.S., with today’s 20,000 hospitalists projected to grow to about 30,000 by the end of the decade.
For more information about SHM, visit www.hospitalmedicine.org.

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