Overview
The Mass General Brigham Emergency Medicine Administration Fellowship prepares residency-trained Emergency Medicine specialists to become competent, knowledgeable and effective managers and leaders in the complex task of providing effective and efficient care in Emergency Departments.
This is a two-year fellowship that includes clinical care and administrative tasks in a variety of settings including academic departments, community hospital departments and in an urgent care clinic. Additionally, it is paired with a Master in Health Care Management program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) which is adjacent to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Clinical Emergency Medicine: The fellow will serve as an attending physician across multiple sites. Fellows receive academic appointments at BWH or MGH, both Level 1 Trauma and Burn Centers with a combined annual visit of 200,000 patients. Fellows supervise Harvard residents in the emergency department, and are expected to be active participants in the educational program for residents.
Academic Activities: Fellows are expected to participate in academic activities, including formal didactic sessions, morbidity and mortality sessions, and faculty meetings as their schedule permits.
Administration: The fellow will be deeply involved in administration while assisting in managing Emergency Care delivery including patient flow, patient relations, quality and safety monitoring and management, inter-professional relations, ED staffing, coding and billing, budgeting, and personnel management. This will entail participation in meetings related to policy, flow within the Department and from the Department to other destinations, quality of care, safety of both patients and staff as well as policy development at the Department level. Additionally, it will require compiling and presenting reports on areas of interest in ED management including business plans related to department expansions as well as new initiatives, both local and national. Knowledge about risk management (both at department and hospital level) and the processes surrounding claims will be cultivated as well. The roles of cadres other than the traditional nurse/doctor team, i.e. physician assistants, nurse practitioners and scribes, will be examined.
IEDLI: In addition to department activities, the participants will attend the International Emergency Department Leadership Institute (IEDLI) courses with the goal of learning emergency management from a global perspective. The program runs annually at a European destination and attracts Emergency Department leaders from across the globe. After completing the Leadership Essentials course, candidates are eligible to attend the certification course to become Certified Emergency Department Executives the following year. Attendees can customize their learning experience through two additional courses, one focusing on emergency department design and the other on executive education. Costs of the tuition for IEDLI is paid for by the department.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: The fellow will enroll in the Master’s Program in Health Care Management (MHCM) at HSPH. This is a two-year program beginning in July. It consists of a five day a week, eight hours per day period for three weeks in the summer, followed by five four-day weekend sessions over the academic year, with multiple projects and virtual meetings and classes in the interim periods. This cycle is then repeated in year two, with degree granting in late June of the second year. A description of the program is available at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/mhcm/.
A separate application is required for this program and the fellowship is contingent on acceptance into the program. Applications must be submitted by December 1 of the year prior to starting the fellowship. Costs of the tuition, required texts (up to $1,000) are paid by the fellowship program. Admissions information and the online application are available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/admissions/.
Research: The Department has an active research program with a wide range of subjects. Research on administrative projects would fit into several areas including health disparities, overcrowding, flow process, finance, claims management, risk mitigation, tele-medicine and more. The fellow will develop a project with a faculty mentor early in the fellowship period, and there is an expectation that there will be an abstract available at the end of year one and a publishable manuscript at the end of year two. This research effort may be paired to a required project that is a part of the MHCM program at HSPH.