1. { physician development }
Hospital Medicine - the way it should be
Sound Physicians’ Approach to Physician Development
In this white paper:
• Why Sound Physicians has a commitment to physician development
• The components of Sound Physicians’ leadership and development tracks
• How our training program is designed to serve our partner hospitals
Sound Physicians is a leading hospitalist organization that drives results through its high-performance model and
engaged physicians. When physicians are engaged, programs at our partner hospitals become better places for care.
As part of our commitment to developing physicians as strong leaders and fostering engaged physicians, we have a team
dedicated to physician development. Our approach is comprised of four key elements:
• All physicians undergo development training
• Physician leaders are nurtured along on a leadership path
• Physician performance and leadership skills are assessed annually
• Physician training is coordinated with all other training at Sound Physicians
All Physicians Undergo Development Training
When physicians join our organization, we provide an online orientation through our learning management platform,
Sound Institute, which introduces new physicians to our business platform, specific coding and billing requirements,
and our commitment to compliance, clinical excellence and patient experience.
We also provide onboarding sessions within each region where physicians are able to meet new colleagues,
regional leadership, and senior physician leaders in-person and via Skype — typically within 90 days of their start dates.
The onboarding sessions educate physicians about:
• Our history, mission, vision, values, business model and compliance practices
• How we drive performance improvement and excellent patient experience of care
• The role and contribution of our hospitalist nurses
• Group norms and expectations
• Physician development and our Path to Partnership
Physician Leaders Are Nurtured Along a Leadership Path
In addition to organization-wide onboarding and orientation, all physicians are
trained along a leadership track from the start of their tenure with Sound Physicians:
Emerging Leaders Program: An annual one-year program available to future leaders from
each region, which exposes physicians to leadership training, a leadership journal club,
and personal mentoring from their regional CMO.
Chief Success Handbook: Online modular training platform that teaches physicians
general knowledge of physician leadership and managerial expectations.

2. Leadership Onboarding and Development: Physician leaders go through our Chief Summit
Initiative, a two-year training plan covering our leadership competencies such as aligning
teams, engaging followers, developing talent, delivering results, communicating effectively,
and understanding the business of healthcare.
All Chiefs Calls: Quarterly webinar calls which update Sound Physicians leaders on
organization-wide performance, new initiatives, and outstanding performance. Calls are
led by CEO Robert Bessler, MD, Chief Clinical Officer Scott Sears, MD, SVP of Physician
Development JD Fitz, MD, and VP of Patient Experience and Physician Development Mark
Rudolph, MD.
National Leadership Conference: Our annual conference brings together our physician
leaders, nurses and regional teams for education, motivation and celebration.
Physician Performance Is Assessed Annually
We evaluate our hospitalist physicians annually to:
• Improve service and quality of care
• Increase team morale, interdependence and accountability
• Grow our hospitalists’ abilities to optimize team performance and grow professionally
• Better serve our hospital partners, nurses and staff
Our performance evaluations start with an online self-assessment, where both a physician
and his/her chief hospitalist rate the physician’s performance. Out of this discussion comes
an Individual Development Plan, which guides the physician’s training and focus areas
for the following year. Each annual evaluation helps determine progress along our Path to
Partnership, which is a two-year track that rewards physicians with partnership at Sound
Physicians for demonstrating quality performance and practice values.
Each chief hospitalist undergoes an annual ‘360’ evaluation, which includes assessments
by the regional Chief Medical Officer, members of the hospital executive team, the entire
team of hospitalists, as well as the chief himself/herself. The regional CMO then reviews
this report with the chief hospitalist and develops an Individual Development Plan.
Individual and team performance is also evaluated through annual performance surveys,
which are completed by nursing, PCPs and specialists at our partner hospitals.
Physician Training is Coordinated with All Other Training
To ensure our content is purposeful to our teams, we run content by an Editorial Review
Board. Training for physicians is coordinated alongside training for hospitalist nurses and
business colleagues, so that our entire organizations is aligned in measurably improving
the quality and reducing the cost of healthcare for patients in the communities we serve.
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Contact
Email: partnership@soundphysicians.com
Web: www.soundphysicians.com
Phone: (253) 682-6052
03-043014-0001-AB