Purpose: To provide an opportunity for medical students to experience various aspects of medical administration, including hospital administration and finance, medical group and health plan administration and management, and clinical contracting and marketing. It is assumed that these issues will be of critical significance to a growing segment of the physician clinicians of the future, and therefore is an important part of the undergraduate medical education experience.

Participants: Up to four (4) UCLA, UCR/UCLA, and Drew/UCLA medical students between the M1 and M2 years.

Program Director: Thomas Rosenthal, M.D., Vice Chancellor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Chief Medical Officer, UCLA Health Care

Program Dates: Eight (8) weeks beginning Monday, June 7 through Wednesday, July 28, 2010. The Administrative Fellowship is designed to be a full-time experience, therefore no vacations or changes in start or end time will be permitted.  Specific day off requests must be approved by Dr. Rosenthal by the first day of the Fellowship.

Stipend: $423 per week.

Curricula: Each Fellow will work in one of the following modules:

1. Hospital Operations. The fellow with work under Doug Gunderson, the Director for Operational Improvement.  The department is responsible for internal consulting to departments throughout the hospital system facilitatating performance improvement initiatives utilizing ‘lean’ and other performance improvement methodologies.  The Fellow will have exposure to and participate in a variety of hospital core operations.
2. Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Institute Administration. The Fellow will work under direction of the Medical Director, UCLA Neuropsychiatric and Behavioral Health Services, Dr. Tom Strouse and Ruth Irwin, MPH,with 1,100 in-patient psychiatric admissions and 70,000 ambulatory visits per year, work may include outpatient operations, inpatient staffing patterns, quality of care, and contracting.
3. Patient Safety and Quality Management. Patient safety has become an important national initiative. Working with the Director for the UCLA Center for Patient Safety and Quality, Tod Barry, the Fellow will work to develop and implement safety related initiatives including root cause analysis, sentinel event management, peer review, credentialing, and process change.
4. Cathy Ward.  Director UCLA In-patient nursing.  "As part of her responsibilities for in-patient nursing at UCLA Medical Center, Ms. Ward leads efforts to coordinate the care of patients moving through the Medical Center.  The Fellow may participate in a number of initiatives including pharmacy redesign, operating room flow, discharge planning, emergency department flow, and observation unit development. With 26,000 admissions, 40,000 emergency room visits, and 12,000 surgical procedures, this is an opportunity to become directly involved with hospital operations."

Final Work Product: Fellows will produce substantive contributions during the course of their work. In addition to the daily activities and in collaboration with your mentor, fellows will identify a project of their own and be responsible for the development and production of  a 10-20 minute PowerPoint presentation highlighting major health care issues to which they were exposed through the fellowship, supported by critical analysis from the literature will be required.

A recent Medical Administrative Summer Fellow wrote of her experience, “My project focused on the increasing need for hospital-wide compliance of national guidelines regarding post-surgical deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prophylaxis to improve morbidity and mortality rates after major surgery. As part of my project, I reviewed medical charts of patients who developed DVTs during the post-surgical period, analyzed various patient characteristics and outcome parameters, and presented my assessment to hospital administrators and practicing surgeons for consideration of alternative clinical practices. Furthermore, I also participated in developing new methods of assuring physician and staff compliance of national guidelines. Fortunately, my presentation successfully convinced the surgeons to recognize the gravity of ongoing noncompliance regarding this issue, and effectively persuaded them to adhere to new regulations to solve the problem. This 2-month-long, patient care oriented project allowed me to utilize my analytical and communication skills to develop a diagnostic approach to improve the care we provide to patients. Subsequently, my efforts resulted in actual change in healthcare delivery at the local level. In addition, this satisfying experience prepared me with the background knowledge and tools to approach future problems of healthcare management in a systematic and effective manner, and thereby preparing me to become a more competent physician and future leader.”

Interested students MUST prepare a one page essay about how they feel they would benefit from the summer fellowship experience. The essay should pick two (2) of the fellowship options identified above and describe what is hoped to be gained from the experience. A curriculum vitae is also required. These should be sent by e-mail to Fran Kissel (fkissel@mednet.ucla.edu) by Friday April 2nd at 5pm. These will serve as the basis for selection into the program. Selected students will be notified by e-mail on Monday April 19th.