Clinical Informatics Fellowship

By design, this fellowship is multidisciplinary with collaboration by faculty in Internal Medicine, Family Practice, Anesthesia, Pediatrics, Bren School of Information and Computer Science, Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS), and Information Services.

The UC Irvine School of Medicine, UC Irvine Medical Center, and Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at UC Irvine are seeking outstanding applicants for a two-year fellowship in Clinical Informatics (CI) at the University of California, Irvine beginning 2017. The program is currently only open to graduates of residency programs (that is, physicians who are board-certified or board-eligible) to apply to our fellowship, but will expand to all specialties within the first few years of its inception.

What is Clinical Informatics?

"The subspecialty of all medical specialties that transforms health care by analyzing, designing, implementing, and evaluating information and communication systems to improve patient care, enhance access to care, advance individual and population health outcomes, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship."
-As defined by ACGME

Educational Experience

The fellowship goal is to create leaders in the field of Clinical Informatics with a strong background in the fundamentals of information technology, change management and Process Improvement. Through the acquisition of this skillset, the fellow will obtain the requisite tools to assess workflow needs, recommend process and technical solutions for a given challenge, and implement information-technology tools to facilitate the proposed solution.

During the fellowship, the fellow will develop and implement technologically based, workflow solutions, which capitalize on the core-competency of Clinical Informatics. Upon successful completion of the two-year program, fellows will be eligible for board certification in clinical informatics. The program’s education experiences will consist of rotations, didactic sessions, and an independent longitudinal research project, and practice in the fellow’s primary clinical specialty.

Rotations

Fellows will have dedicated, monthly rotations which focus on key components/competencies of clinical informatics. As part of these rotations, the fellows will apply their developing informatics skillset on active informatics projects. Program faculty in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, UC Irvine Institute of Clinical and Translational Science (ITCS), UC Irvine Bren School, and Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) will provide direct feedback during fellows’ rotations. UC Irvine and CHOC will offer fellows several health care systems with differing patient populations and electronic medical record systems to work with. This fellowship is designed to allow for a highly flexible rotation structure, customized to each fellow's career objectives.

Didactics

All fellows will be required to participate in didactic sessions that will be delivered by expert faculty and cover core curriculum, journal club, and case studies. Additionally, fellows will be expected to, among other education activities, attend clinical and research conferences. Coursework in clinical informatics will be available through UC Irvine’s Donald Bren Computer Informatics Department and AMIA’s 10x10 course.

Longitudinal Research Project

All fellows are required to conduct a longitudinal research project – chosen by the fellow and with a physician faculty member acting as mentor – during the second year of their fellowship. They will select a research question to address based upon their own career objectives and any challenges discovered during their first year rotations.

Resources to support fellow projects will be available from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (boasting advanced educational facilities with smart classrooms, a multitude of learning studios, simulation labs, and group study/conference rooms) and UC Irvine’s onsite and online libraries up to and including Ayala Science Library, one of the largest consolidated science, technology, and medicine libraries in the nation, containing the collections and services that support research and teaching in the schools of Information and Computer Science and Medicine, among others; and the Grunigen Medical Library, including UpToDate, JAMAevidence, and other core resources

Clinical Time

Fellows will have clinical time to practice their primary specialty.

Accreditation

The UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship anticipates accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in early 2017.

Faculty & Staff

Scott E. Rudkin, MD, MBA, RDMS, FAAEM, FACEP
Chief Medical Information Officer
Health Affairs Information Services
Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Email: srudkin@uci.edu

Jessica Holland
Fellowship Coordinator
Department of Emergency Medicine
Email: jmhollan@uci.edu

Fellow Requirements

• Applicants must have graduated from an appropriately licensed medical school located in the United States or Canada, or from a school located elsewhere that is approved by ABPM
• Applicants must successfully complete a residency in an ABMS-participating specialty by June 2017, and must be either board-certified or board-eligible at the time of application
• Applicants should be eligible for a permanent California medical license
• Applicants do not need to have formal training in Computer Science or a related discipline

Applying

Interested parties, please contact jmholland@uci.edu and srudking@uci.edu with your inquiry and include the following:

• Personal Statement
• Curriculum Vitae (Must include: Education, Training, Honors and Awards, Professional Experience, Relevant Publications and Presentations)
• A minimum of 3 Professional Letters of Recommendation (directly addressing the clinical informatics program)

Questions or Comments

If you have any questions or comments, please email jmhollan@uci.edu.