News

Population Health Fellowship: Pathway to Transformation

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Population Health Fellowship: pathway to transformation:

OPPORTUNITY

Riverside County Medical Association (RCMA) and the Inland Empire Foundation for Medical Care (IEFMC) are now accepting applications from Inland Empire practices to participate in a fully integrated practice-based Population Health Fellowship program beginning July 1, 2025.

This transformational one-year program serves as a foundational element for boosting practice performance and physician retention in the Inland Empire.

A GRADUATE FELLOW’S PERSPECTIVE

Katie Bourbeau-Medinilla, MD (Fellowship year 2022- 2023), Arrowhead Internal Medicine, commented, “This Population Health Medicine Fellowship is undeniably the most relevant experience of my medical education. Residency taught me how to take care of patients; this fellowship taught me how to manage patients within our ever increasingly complicated healthcare system. The knowledge and leadership skills acquired through this fellowship have set me on a path of success, both professionally and personally, and I would highly recommend this fellowship to any physician.”

BACKGROUND

The challenges of attracting and retaining high quality primary care physicians in the Inland Empire lies not in increasing physician density, but rather in assuring exemplary training for young physicians who are prepared to take the lead to positively transform a medical practice and he future of sustainable quality care delivery in our region.

STRATEGY

With a four-year track record of success, our Population Health Fellowship program focuses on ensuring:

• the development of a new breed of physicians who become effective population health managers and transformation agents collaborating with their colleagues to facilitate both clinical and operational success on many levels.
• the preparation of primary care physicians to lead interdisciplinary teams that challenge the status quo by developing and testing new strategies and workflows for optimizing their practice and the health and well-being of our communities.

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS

Each year two primary care medical practices in the Inland Empire, who are members of the Inland Empire Foundation for Medical Care, will be selected from the applicant pool based on their commitment to:

• Having employed an early career physician (within the first five years of practice). The practice must be willing to support the Fellow in facilitating, building and refining population health strategies within their practices/clinics
• Willingness to carve out 10 hours per week for the Fellow to focus specifically on population health education and clinic/practice population health projects
• Appointing a senior practice-based mentor physician to work with our faculty and the Fellow.

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM CURRICULUM

A comprehensive 12-month curriculum covers key population health focus areas including structured assignments with measurable outcomes designed to transform provider and practice performance during the fellowship year.

Section 1: Population Health – breaking down the walls
Section 2: Healthcare spending – beginning at the practice level
Section 3: Analytics – challenges and opportunities
Section 4: Collaborative care and follow-up – true patient centricity
Section 5: Annual Wellness Visits – a missed quality outcomes opportunity
Section 6: Care Coordination: the whole picture
Section 7: Practice management: innovation begins here
Section 8: Value-based Care: steps in the right direction
Section 9: Two-sided Risk: the advantage remains to be seen
Section 10: All-Payer Global Budget Healthcare System: a unifying solution
Section 11: Public Health Challenges: vaccinations
Section 12: Changing the course of local healthcare: a leadership role

These dynamic up-to-date focus areas progressively engage the Fellow and the practice on multiple levels. Detailed in-depth topics are presented each week along with structured practicum assignments that are conducted within the practice each month. Each assignment focuses on implementing key population health insights for improving the practice’s performance and its patients’ outcomes.

FELLOWSHIP FACULTY

This unique one-year fellowship is led by Barry Bittman, MD along with an interdisciplinary IEFMC team. Dr. Bittman serves as IEFMC’s Chief Population Health and Quality Officer. With extensive population health experience, Dr. Bittman, a nationally recognized subject matter expert and widely published researcher with a long-standing teaching background, has pioneered multiple successful integrative population health programs that serve communities throughout our nation.

FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

IEFMC is providing a loan assistance scholarship to each Fellow upon successful completion of the Population Health Fellowship who remains with their sponsoring practice for a minimum of five years. The $50,000 scholarship is payable over five years ($10,000 per year x 5 years). If your practice has an interested early career physician, and is firmly committed to positively transforming your practice to meet present and future healthcare challenges, please consider sending a letter of interest to: