Carmichael, ’14, is one of first two fellows in new fellowship program focused on population health

Intermountain Healthcare and the Stanford University School of Medicine have launched a fellowship program that began in July and a 2014 MCG graduate is one of the first two fellows.

The two-year Stanford-Intermountain Population Health and Care Delivery Science Fellowship will support the education and training of the next generation of leaders in population health, primary care, and care delivery science. Developing leaders in these areas is crucial to meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing healthcare system and to transition healthcare to a broader focus on populations, value, and service over visits.

“The fellowship program is part of an exciting collaboration that focuses on advancing clinical care best practices, education and training, and clinical research,” says Raj Srivastava, MD, MPH, Assistant Vice President Research and fellowship co-director. “The purpose of the fellowship is to take advantage of the two institutions’ synergies in research, system implementation design, and strong desire to deploy effective evidence-based interventions in both health care systems.”

The first two fellows in the program are Stacie Marie Vilendrer, MD, MBA, and Harris Lee Carmichael, MD.

Dr. Vilendrer recently finished her family physician residency at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, a UCSF-affiliate with a focus on healthcare delivery innovation. Dr. Vilendrer has strong clinical experience in internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, geriatrics, and focused training in integrative/functional medicine and global health. She obtained her MD from Stanford with a concentration in health policy and bioinformatics.

Dr. Carmichael recently finished as the chief medical resident, University of Utah, internal medicine, with strong experience in biomedical sciences and research. He obtained his MD from the Medical College of Georgia-Augusta University, and undergraduate degree at Auburn University.

Each fellow will assemble a formal mentorship team with at least one core faculty member from each institution to help them develop a project from existing efforts at Intermountain or at one of Stanford’s affiliated research centers (e.g. the Center for Population Health Sciences, the Clinical Excellence Research Center and the VA Center for Innovation to Implementation).

The first year of the fellowship consists of coursework and participating in seminars in which they fellows have the opportunity to present their work. The second year will be devoted to the fellow’s project interspersed with a tailored 2-4 week Advanced Training Program at the Intermountain Healthcare Delivery Institute in quality improvement methods and evaluation. In addition, fellows will continue their clinical work consistent with training at either institution.

“The best care and best research are interdisciplinary. We need to train healthcare leaders to confront current and future problems of healthcare delivery by educating them in the scientific discovery and implementation process,” says Steve Asch MD, MPH, fellowship co-director and vice chief of primary care and population health at Stanford. “Our strategic partnership with Intermountain is intended to accelerate the scientific discovery process for both institutions and lead to improved patient care and affordability.”