Clinical Informatics Fellowship

Fellows will be mentored by faculty with a diverse range of practice styles, backgrounds and skills. Faculty interests include healthcare and informatics operations, clinical decision support and the learning healthcare system, digitizing medical education, healthcare entrepreneurship and predictive medicine. As UCI Medical Center, Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center Long Beach and CHOC are academic medical centers, fellows will also have the opportunity to teach and work with residents, medical students and undergraduates.

We believe effective leadership comes from understanding, experiencing and managing all aspects of the healthcare mission. Therefore, fellows are engaged at every level of the organization — from the front lines of clinical care and basic research to the upper echelons of management and administration.

Fellows will have dedicated monthly rotations that focus on key components/competencies of clinical informatics. As part of these rotations, the fellows will apply their burgeoning informatics skill set on live informatics projects. Program faculty will provide direct feedback during fellows’ rotations. Moreover, UC Irvine and CHOC will offer fellows several healthcare systems with differing patient populations and electronic medical record systems to work with.

This fellowship is designed to have a highly flexible rotation structure, customized to each fellow’s career objectives. 

Sample Block Diagram

All fellows are required to participate in didactic sessions via the program curriculum that is delivered by expert faculty and covers the core curriculum. The fellowship’s 13-block curriculum was created and designed to provide a comprehensive training experience for fellows over a two-year period. It integrates clinical informatics board topics with ACGME milestone competencies, ensuring that fellows develop both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed in the field. Each block focuses on specific topics relevant to clinical informatics while also incorporating practical elements tailored to the unique rotation sites where fellows train. This structure promotes a balanced education, blending academic learning with real-world application, and prepares fellows for successful careers in clinical informatics. Fellows participate in journal clubs at UC Irvine and journal clubs hosted by all UC Clinical Informatics fellowship programs and case studies. Additionally, fellows will be expected to, among other educational activities, attend clinical and research conferences, and attend UC Clinical Informatics grand rounds. 

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 on 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). UC Irvine’s on-site and online libraries are available, 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.

Fellows will have dedicated clinical time to practice in their primary specialty.

Interviews are generally held in the late summer/early fall. Interviews will be conducted by fellowship faculty, fellows and department chairs.

All interviews must be held remotely, even if the candidate lives locally. This policy aligns with guidance provided by the Coalition for Physician Accountability, which is composed of key national medical educational stakeholders, such as the American Board of Medical Specialties, LCME, AAMC, AMA and the ACGME.

The UC Irvine School of Medicine supports this approach because we must consider applicants' safety and well-being, physical restrictions and financial barriers to travel, and shifting shelter-in-place orders. To promote an equitable selection process, all applicants should have the same.

To promote an equitable and transparent selection program, the UC GME Offices and UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship program support the AAMC recommendation to use a virtual interview format for the current recruitment season.*

All University of California medical residency and fellowship programs that function under the Office of GME must conduct only virtual interviews for all selected applicants during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Any in-person visits or “second looks” may be completed only after the program completes all virtual interviews and “locks” the rank order list (ROL). Even if the “locking” option is not yet offered by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) or other online system used for the trainee selection process, the program must still make all efforts to comply. Rank order lists should not be altered after any applicants’ in-person visits.

Applicants will not be required to travel. In-person visits will not influence the programs’ rank order lists.

Hybrid interviewing (a combination of virtual and in-person interviews in the same year or program) is not permitted because of the risk of inequities resulting from applicants’ different resources and abilities to visit in person.

Programs must share their interview process with applicants as early as possible in the selection cycle to minimize applicant stress and optimize transparency.

*Please contact the fellowship coordinator for current information regarding the interview season.

The UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship participates in the American Medical Informatics Association’s Match Day, which is typically hosted during the second week of December. Visit the AMIA website for more details.