UCLA’s Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program has been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), making it one of seven programs to earn the approval.

The American Board of Medical Specialties approved clinical informatics as a new, board-eligible subspecialty in 2011. Beginning in 2018, board eligibility in clinical informatics will require completion of a ACGME-accredited fellowship program. There are less than 800 U.S. physicians board-certified in clinical informatics.

Fellows for the two-year fellowship will be chosen in April and are open to graduates of residency programs in any medical specialty.

“Clinical informatics is the scientific discipline focused on how we can deliver knowledge and information precisely where it’s needed in healthcare,” said Douglas Bell, MD, program director of the new fellowship, in a release. “By learning to conduct rigorous research as well as to manage health IT systems, our fellows will close the gap between informatics research and practice by conducting research that’s embedded in and that directly informs clinical informatics practice.”

“Clinical informatics is critical to the success of technology in healthcare, whether it involves electronic health records, imaging informatics or shaping policy on how technology is used,” said Michael Pfeffer, MD, CMIO and acting chief information officer for UCLA Health. “As board-certified physicians in the specialty of their choosing, and as active clinicians using technologies in real time, they will be able to apply their knowledge from the fellowship to develop new and user-friendly ways for technology to help clinicians take better care of patients.”