Eric E. Howell, MD, MHM, Assumes Role as CEO of the Society of Hospital Medicine

Dr. Howell Brings Years of Society, Healthcare Leadership and Innovation to Executive Position

Today, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), the leading medical society for hospitalists, officially welcomes Eric E. Howell, MD, MHM as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Howell will report to the Board of Directors and is tasked with ensuring that SHM continues to serve the evolving needs and interests of its members while overseeing the organization’s strategic direction. 

“The SHM Board of Directors is excited to work with Dr. Howell to navigate the future of SHM and of the hospital medicine specialty,” says Danielle Scheurer, MD, MSCR, SFHM, SHM President and Chair of the CEO Search Committee. “With his extensive knowledge of the healthcare landscape and of SHM, Dr. Howell embodies the society’s dedication to empowering hospitalists to be positive change agents in their institutions and in the healthcare system as a whole.”

Prior to his current role, Dr. Howell served as Chief Operating Officer of SHM for two years, leading senior management’s planning and defining organizational goals to drive growth, and as the Senior Physician Advisor to SHM’s Center for Quality Improvement for five years, consulting the society’s arm that conducts quality improvement programs for hospitalist teams. In addition to being a past president of SHM’s Board of Directors, he is the course director for the SHM Leadership Academies.

“Now more than ever, SHM has an opportunity to super-serve hospitalists and the patients they serve, and I couldn’t be more excited to lead the society into its next chapter,” notes Dr. Howell. “Supported by a dedicated member base and innovative staff, I am confident that SHM will continue on its successful path forward and will provide its members with the products, services and tools that hospitalists need to improve patient care and adapt to the constantly evolving environment.”

In addition to serving in various capacities at SHM, Dr. Howell has served as a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He has held multiple titles within the Johns Hopkins medical institutions, including Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview, Section Chief of Hospital Medicine for Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, Deputy Director of Hospital Operations for the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and Chief Medical Officer of Operations at Johns Hopkins Bayview in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Howell joined the Johns Hopkins Bayview hospitalist program in 2000, began the Howard County General Hospital hospitalist program in 2010 and oversaw nearly 200 physicians and clinical staff providing patient care in three hospitals. Along with his role as SHM CEO, he will remain a member of the adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University.

More recently, Dr. Howell served as Chief Medical Officer for the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital (BCCFH), a fully functional, 250-bed hospital created to care for patients in the Baltimore metropolitan area who were suffering from complications from COVID-19.

Dr. Howell received his electrical engineering degree from the University of Maryland, which has proven instrumental in his mastery of managing and implementing change in the hospital. His research has focused on the relationship between the emergency department and medicine floors, improving communication, throughput and patient outcomes.

The nationwide search process that led to Dr. Howell's appointment was led by a CEO Search Committee, comprised of members of the SHM Board of Directors and assisted by the executive search firm Spencer Stuart.

Dr. Howell succeeds Dr. Laurence Wellikson, who helped in founding the Society of Hospital Medicine, its first and only CEO since 2000 prior to Dr. Howell’s appointment.