The Society of Hospital Medicine Honors the Hospital Medicine Reengineering Network (HOMERuN) COVID-19 Collaborative Group With 2023 Team Award in Quality Improvement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2023
About SHM
Representing the fastest growing specialty in modern healthcare, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is the leading medical society for hospitalists and their patients.
Group Provides Support and Resources for Hospitalists to Collaborate and Overcome Challenges of COVID-19 and Beyond
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) recently announced the recipients of its 2023 Awards of Excellence, honoring hospitalists who are advancing hospital medicine through innovation, education, and advocacy. This year’s winner of SHM’s Team Award in Quality Improvement was the Hospital Medicine Reengineering Network (HOMERuN) COVID-19 Collaborative Group.
“Hospital medicine continues to grow at a rapid pace, and we need leaders and innovators in the field to ensure that its future remains bright for years to come,” explains Eric E. Howell, MD, MHM, Chief Executive Officer of the Society of Hospital Medicine. “This year’s Awards of Excellence recipients are among those who have risen to the challenge and contributed not only to the advancement of hospital medicine, but to the overall state of healthcare nationwide.”
The HOMERuN COVID-19 Collaborative Group produced wide-ranging and impactful support for hospitalists, hospitals, and patients and their family caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic’s most challenging days. HOMERuN exemplifies a nimble, scalable, near-real-time structure to share best practice and lessons for many challenges facing hospitalists and hospitals beyond COVID-19.
HOMERuN connected hospitalists across the U.S., rapidly sharing best practice and lessons learned to improve patient care. Video calls with breakout sessions facilitated more than 150 members providing real-time data collection and dissemination to and from as many as 80 medical centers. E-mail summaries, surveys, newsletters, and an accompanying website provided a broader hospital-medicine audience insight into numerous institutions’ approach to evaluating and managing patients with COVID-19.
The team comprehensively addressed topics ranging from clinical pathways to workforce planning to discharge criteria. HOMERuN also generated multiple peer-reviewed publications and presentations. Perhaps HOMERuN’s greatest impact occurred early in the pandemic when hospitalists were overwhelmed by a deluge of new information — all while caring for a torrent of patients. HOMERuN provided a safe harbor in that storm; a reliable venue to find reassurance that others were similarly struggling and a source of fortifying knowledge. The HOMERuN team epitomized dedicated collaboration among hospitalists, working to address the biggest challenge of their careers together.
Awards of Excellence winners were recognized at SHM’s annual conference, SHM Converge, held from March 26-29, 2023, in Austin, TX. For more information on SHM’s Awards of Excellence, visit hospitalmedicine.org/awards.