Emergency Medicine Administration Fellowship

This fellowship in Phoenix focuses on Emergency Department operations; quality improvement and safety; finance, billing, and coding; risk management; and leadership

Creighton University School of Medicine is pleased to announce a new fellowship program in Phoenix: Emergency Medicine Administration. This one-year, non-ACGME fellowship program currently has one open position.

What You’ll Learn

Fellows in this program will gain the skills needed to serve as leaders within a public, community or academic teaching emergency department (ED) and hospital system. This includes:

  • Developing expertise in ED operations and management
  • Learning the principles of quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS) and helping teams create and implement QIPS projects
  • Acquiring basic financial management and billing and coding skills with an emphasis on ED evaluation and management, critical care and procedural coding

Additionally, fellows will attend three or more EM conferences and present at least one scholarly project in an area of interest to the fellow, such as operations, advocacy, risk management or finance. 

Application Requirements

To be considered for this fellowship, applicants must:

  • Have completed a residency in emergency medicine from an ACGME-accredited training program  
  • Be board certified or board eligible in emergency medicine
  • Be licensed (or able to obtain a license) to practice medicine in the state of Arizona
  • Have demonstrate an interest in emergency department, healthcare or health systems administration, operations, safety, financial management, leadership or advocacy

 

To apply, please contact the Fellowship Director, Paul E. Pugsley, MD

Curriculum

The curriculum includes five blocks, focusing on ED operations; quality improvement and safety; finance, billing, and coding; risk management; and leadership. However, all topics are integrated throughout the fellowship’s full duration. Additional areas of focus may include public health, advocacy, social medicine and informatics.

At the start of the fellowship, the fellow and program director will meet to tailor the 12-month curriculum to the fellow’s areas of interest. This will impact the emphasis or duration of each block, as well as the conferences and scholarly projects the fellow selects. 

ED Operations Block

Approximately months 1 – 4 | This block includes weekly didactics and readings delivered via 1:1 instruction with the program director, department chair, site medical directors, director of HR and ED and hospital nursing leadership.  

Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Block

Approximately months 5 – 7 | Didactics and 1:1 instruction with the department QI director, hospital quality leadership team, departmental director for peer review and trauma PRC/multidisciplinary team are included in this block. Fellows will participate in trauma peer review committees, as well as department- and system-level peer reviews. They will also present at an academic EM didactic conference on a topic related to QIPS science.  

Finance, Billing and Coding Block

Approximately months 8 – 9 | During this block, fellows will receive 1:1 mentorship from the department chair and leadership team from the medical group. They will also work with in-house department administrators and coders, as well as third-party partners to gain knowledge on EM billing and coding practices. Fellows may choose to attend the ACEP Billing and Coding Conference in this block.  

Risk Management Block

Approximately months 10 – 11 | Fellows will meet with leadership from the medical group and health system’s risk management team to review cases and issues during this block. They will also attend RCAs, participate in reviews, and work with the patient advocacy and experience division. Assigned reading related to risk management will be reviewed every other week with the program director, department chair or both.  

Leadership Block

Approximately month 12 | In this block, fellows will gain knowledge and exposure to various leadership styles and personnel management. This includes 1:1 meetings with the Chair, medical staff and C-suite leadership across the partner sites. They will also participate in medical staff committees, including the Medical Executive Committee, and complete a course for early development in medical staff leadership.   

Locations and Affiliations

The primary site for this fellowship is Valleywise Health Medical Center. Additional sites and partners include:  

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Fellow performing a routine check up

Mission

For more than 130 years, the Creighton University School of Medicine has been dedicated to forming medical students in alignment with the Jesuit, Catholic value cura personalis, or “care for the whole person.” This guides not only how our faculty and staff form future physicians, but also how Creighton physicians serve patients—holding space for each patient’s values and background.

A Message from the Program Director

The Fellowship in Emergency Department Administration is designed to expose early career emergency physicians to the spectrum of practice environments, so they have the tools to become leaders within their departments and beyond.  

A mentor told me, “Once you have learned how to run one emergency department, you know to run exactly one emergency department.” Anyone who has trained, practiced or interfaced with those in an ED or hospital outside their own, knows this to be true. Our program offers experience across publicly funded health systems, community EDs, free standing EDs, academic training sites and tertiary referral centers, so the future graduate can be effective in any future practice setting.  

We are looking for applicants who have a passion for not only leading within the ED during their careers, but outside of it as well. This may be as a future hospital or health system leader, through advocacy on the local or national level, or in any way that can improve the lives of our patients, colleagues or field of emergency medicine.  

Phoenix is a wonderful place to grow, train and spend the next step of your career. We look forward to hearing from you.

Paul E. Pugsley, MD

Contact Us

Paul E. Pugsley, MD
Emergency Medicine Administration Fellowship Director
Valleywise Health Medical Center
602.344.5418 

Alexis Ballentine
Emergency Medicine Administration Fellowship Manager
Creighton University School of Medicine