Apollo Medical Holdings, Inc. ("ApolloMed") (OTC-QB: AMEH), an integrated physician-centric healthcare delivery company, and the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) Internal Medicine Residency Program today announced the launch of the USC Hospitalist Leadership Fellowship Program at ApolloMed.
The Fellowship will be an intensive one-year training and educational program designed to provide internal medicine graduates with experience in all aspects of hospitalist medicine healthcare delivery and will provide trainees with the foundation to become the next generation of hospitalist leaders. The curriculum will involve 50% clinical training and 50% non-clinical training, and will include education on patient safety, quality improvement, utilization management, care coordination, reducing readmissions, hospital and managed care financial metrics and the business side of hospital medicine.
"We are very pleased to join the Keck School of Medicine of USC in developing this much needed program," stated Warren Hosseinion, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Medical Holdings. "Regardless of who is in the White House or which party controls the Congress, healthcare is transforming rapidly, with two-thirds of payments expected to be based on value-based models within the next three years. This will require strong physician leaders to not only improve the quality of patient care but also the efficiency of the healthcare delivery system."
Hospitalists are responsible primarily for caring for inpatients admitted through the clinic or emergency department. The hospitalist model has evolved into a split model in which outpatient physicians continue seeing patients in the clinic with the hospitalist taking over when the patient needs to be admitted. With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the hospitalist role can shorten the length of a patient's stay and improve quality and safety while reducing costs.
"This is a unique opportunity for anyone interested in the future of hospital medicine," stated Michael Karp, M.D., Interim Chief for the Division of Geriatrics, Hospital, Palliative, and General Internal Medicine at USC. "This fellowship not only allows for medical training at an outstanding institution, but is crafted in a way that allows our fellows to learn key concepts regarding the delivery of health care including quality, safety, cost-effectiveness, and resource management. This will likely become a model that others will follow in order to prepare the future leaders in the field of hospital medicine."
The fellowship is designed to be a one-year program. Fellows receive advanced training in hospital medicine, as well as dedicated training in quality metrics, safety measures, utilization review, billing, and transitions of care. Keck School of Medicine of USC faculty in conjunction with the ApolloMed team conduct the training.
Vickie Wu, M.D., who will lead USC's involvement as the Fellowship Program Director stated, "Hospital medicine is a rapidly growing field, and the one-year Hospital Medicine Fellowship is designed to integrate clinical experience with the development of the skill set necessary for hospital operations and quality improvement. Our goal is to train physicians to become future leaders of hospital medicine."
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