Networking and learning opportunities abound at Converge 2024
New Special Interest Forums and returning Chapter Meetups provide connections with fellow SHM members.
With more than three dozen to choose from, this year’s Special Interest Forums at Converge 2024 will offer plenty of opportunities for connecting and sharing with fellow SHM members.
Two new forums have been added to the lineup of returning forums: Hospital at Home and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Kevin Vuernick, SHM membership engagement manager, said Hospital at Home is about establishing a program or department for patients who are acutely ill to receive care in their home instead of the hospital by leveraging technology like telehealth and employing traveling nurses to provide the needed care.
“This is all about how you establish a program — what technology you need, how you staff it, what kind of agreements you need, the risks, and benefits,” Vuernick said. “It was something that, pre-pandemic, was starting to gain some momentum, and since 2020 has really exploded. But it’s so new that there are a lot of questions and a learning curve.”
The Innovation and Entrepreneurship forum, meanwhile, is focused on establishing a community of innovators and entrepreneurs who are interested in accelerating ideas into commercialized products and services that ultimately improve hospitalized patients’ experience and outcomes.
In addition to the new forums, there are plenty of returning forums to choose from, including Residents and Students, which is meant as a networking opportunity for any resident or student to connect with their peers, as well as faculty from the Physicians In Training Committee who will be present at the session; Value-Based Care, which focuses on what high value care is and how it can affect the entirety of the patient’s journey; and Rural Hospitalists, which is all about the unique challenges in resources, staffing, practice models, and capacity that are found in rural hospitals and underserved areas.
Each SIG has an online community on Hospital Medicine Exchange (HMX), SHM’s online community platform. You can also find the full schedule at Special Interest Forums.
Vuernick said the forums provide a path for SHM members to connect with and learn from colleagues as well as get involved in different aspects of the hospitalist community.
“In shining a light on the various communities, topics and interests that exist in hospital medicine and show members how they can get involved and find their people, it will grant them access to information, connections, and resources that can help support them and move their careers forward,” he said. “And they can do that by topic or practice type with the Special Interest Forums and by geographic proximity with the Chapter Meet-ups.”
Chapter meetups provide a casual networking opportunity for members to meet others local to them while attending the national conference, according to Lisa Kroll, SHM associate director of member and volunteer engagement. Members will be able to meet local chapter leaders, hear about upcoming chapter activities, and learn about ways to get involved locally.
“Getting involved in these groups will help catapult hospitalists in their careers through the connections they make through their local chapter or with those with similar passions within hospital medicine,” she said. “Converge provides numerous opportunities for attendees to get a taste of what it’s like to be involved in these communities.”
For more information, visit Chapter Meetups.
Visit SHM Meeting News Central for more coverage.
