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Division Directors SIG

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Prospective Academic General Pediatrics Division Directors

SIG Description

In order to be more inclusive to the talent and interests of the members of the APA, The Division Directors in General Pediatrics SIG is now named the Division Directors SIG. The SIG is open to all Division Directors such as Hospitalist Medicine, Adolescent Medicine, Development and Behavioral Pediatrics and Child Protection whom we all share similar issues such as academic development and promotion, financial constraints and educational and research priorities. We welcome all division directors to our annual meeting at the PAS annual conference as well as communicating with us throughout the year to discuss common issues. We also welcome suggestions for topics that can be addressed at our annual meeting. Current and future academic division chiefs can use the following document, Prospective Academic General Pediatrics Division Directors to assist in defining goals and objectives for you and the division.

Special Activities

The annual APA Leadership Meeting started from effort of this SIG to fulfill the needs of Division Directors. Under the leadership of Tina Cheng, based on data from a national survey of Division Directors, the meeting was planned five years ago and has had four very successful meetings. This past year we collaborated with the APPD for a joint Leadership meeting in Sept 2010 in Reston Virginia. Watch for announcements of our next meeting in 2012.

Past Meetings

2011 PAS Meeting in Denver

The Division Directors SIG engaged in an exciting and informative meeting in Denver. This year two mini-workshops were presented:

Developing Faculty Skills in Mentoring: Design of a Comprehensive Program to Improve Retention of Staff Physicians. Presented by Dr. Elaine Schulte.
Dr. Elaine Schulte is the Chair of the Department of General Pediatrics at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital. In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Dr. Schulte maintains an active clinical practice, with specific interests in adoption, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, lead poisoning, immunizations and residency education. The Cleveland Clinic Mentorship Program began in 2008 as a grassroots effort to address the career needs of junior faculty members and has grown into a formal program spanning the entire institution. This mini-workshop tells the story of that organizational journey and explains the unique Mentee-Coach-Mentor model that makes it successful. During the session, Dr Schulte reviewed why formal physician mentoring programs are in demand; discussed critical factors for a successful mentorship program; and described the unique structure and early outcomes of the Cleveland Clinic Faculty Mentorship program and physician reward features. Additionally, basic mentoring skills were reviewed and there was discussion of a proactive "Asset-Based Possibility" (ABP) mentoring model through a simulation. Participants had the opportunity to practice ABP mentoring with each other. The session encouraged participants to be inspired to create a mentoring program at their own institutions, or be motivated to improve existing mentorship programs.
Optimizing RVU Capture in Academic Pediatrics. Presented by Dr. Jay Pershad.
Dr. Jay Pershad is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Emergency Medicine, at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center (UTHSC) in Memphis. He also serves as the Director of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship program. Dr. Pershad is also one of the managing partners of a fiscally independent group, Pediatric Emergency & Sedation Specialists, PC that provides clinical services at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, the major teaching hospital affiliate of UTHSC. The division has successfully implemented an RVU based compensation model for over 5 years. The increasing scrutiny by payers, health care reform and Medicaid cuts make it essential to have a good understanding of the business of academic medicine. Most governmental and nongovernmental payers have adopted components of the Resource Based Relative Value Scale by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to pay for physician services. Academic centers are now adopting an incentive based model for faculty compensation, with RVUs as the centerpiece of clinical productivity. Emergency department visits encompass a "wide" menu of services, with many occurring in regular primary care that can be used as a specialty model for appropriate coding and documentation of a range of services in the ambulatory and acute care setting. The discussion included: Effective communication strategies with the institution's coders and billing personnel; Requirements for teaching physician documentation; Impact of under-coding of encounters; Billing for smaller yet distinct services that can enhance RVUs; Commonly overlooked procedure based codes, time based billing, and coding for mental health and prolonged services in the ambulatory setting; A proposed model based on the principles of transparency and fairness, for assigning "academic" RVUs to incentivize non-clinical endeavors (teaching, administration, research and advocacy) that are critical to the academic mission. The mini-workshop utilized interactive, case based scenarios to optimize RVU capture with to assist in enhancing the bottom line for divisions.

2010 PAS Meeting in Vancouver

The Division Directors and Faculty Development SIG collaborated to present a workshop on Individual Faculty Development Plans (IFDP) at the 2010 PAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver. The workshop leaders were Susan Bostwick, Juan Parra, Joe Lopreiato, Miriam Bar-on, Nancy Spector and John Meurer. The workshop was well attended with participants receiving presentations on IFDP from academic institutions as well as literature review on faculty development.

The workshop participants engaged in small group discussions to critique the IFDP presented and discuss how the IFDP could be used at their own institutions or develop a hybrid IFDP to meet their needs. The majority of workshop participants chose to use one of the existing IFDP. The workshop leaders collected participant comments and developed a summary handout on IFDP. The workshop resource materials are available at the following link: Creating an Individual Faculty Development Plan.

The meeting concluded with separate SIG business meetings. The Division Directors in General Pediatrics SIG discussed work RVU's in academic general pediatric practice. Daniel Neuspiel presented data from an e-mail survey on the topic.