Clinical Informatics Fellowship

Prepare practicing medical professionals for careers in clinical informatics where they would continue their clinical work along with non-clinical roles in administering, developing, implementing, and using health information technology systems.

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is pleased to offer 2-year ACGME accredited Clinical Informatics Fellowship positions through MetroHealth’s Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education.  Our fellowship is unique in that it has 3 sites —Cleveland Clinic, The MetroHealth System, and University Hospitals of Cleveland.

Based at MetroHealth, this fellowship exposes fellows to informatics opportunities at Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, and University Hospitals of Cleveland. Fellowship positions are open to physicians who will have completed a residency prior to starting the fellowship.

The MetroHealth System is a unique place to participate in a Clinical Informatics Fellowship because MetroHealth was the first public healthcare system to install the Epic electronic health record, starting in 1999. It was also the first public healthcare system with Epic to achieve the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society’s (HIMSS) Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) Stage 7 (highest) in all of its hospitals and ambulatory clinics in 2014 (revalidated in 2017, 2020 and 2023).

Currently the MetroHealth System is in the top 1% nationally of healthcare systems in terms of implementation and use of the EHR based on HIMSS data. In a 2021 KLAS Arch collaborative survey of physicians and nurses, the MetroHealth Epic EHR implementation was in the 97th percentile of all EHR implementations in the US.

Cleveland Clinic is also a longstanding Epic customer, going live in 2002. University Hospitals of Cleveland transitioned to the Epic electronic health record in 2023.

The fellowship is designed to provide physicians with clinical informatics training and experience to complement their clinical training. The fellowship is ideally suited to help prepare trainees to be board-eligible in Clinical Informatics.

Our fellowship is intended to prepare practicing medical professionals for careers in applied clinical informatics where they would continue their clinical work along with non-clinical roles administering, developing, implementing, and using health information technology systems.

Apply

Applications are accepted through the AAMC’s Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS). All interviews will be held virtually.

Application process

Contact Us

Contact the Program Coordinator or David Kaelber, MD, PhD, MPH, FAAP, FACP, FAMIA, FACMI, Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program Director

Fellows

Our fellowship program is intended to prepare practicing medical professionals for careers in clinical informatics.

Our Fellows

Faculty

We are a teaching hospital of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where our faculty members hold academic appointments.

Our Faculty

Unique Characteristics

Primary characteristics that uniquely distinguish our fellowship program.

Learn More

Alumni

Alumni from our Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program have successful careers.

Alumni

Our Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program strives to achieve the following goals:

  • To help produce the next generation of physician informatics leaders who will help guide and lead the implementation and use of clinical information systems to improve healthcare and health.
  • To offer an innovative clinical informatics training program tailored to fellows’ interests.
  • To create an educational environment that fosters scholarly activity with an emphasis on applied clinical informatics.
  • To promote a nurturing and collaborative atmosphere that encourages fellow wellness, personal growth, and camaraderie.
  • To recruit and develop exemplary faculty and fellows who have a passion for learning, teaching, service, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
  • To use technology to promote the health and well-being of our community and help the MetroHealth System to continue to be a national leader in applied clinical informatics.

Frequently Asked Questions

We accept applications through the ERAS program.

  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Letter from current or previous program director
  • Two additional letters of recommendation
  • Medical school transcript
  • Personal statement
  • ECFMG certificate (foreign medical graduates)
  • Copies of USMLE and/or COMLEX board score reports

**Step 3 scores required by December 1st for H1B visa eligibility 

Applicants must have completed two years of an ACGME-accredited residency or a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) or College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC)-accredited residency program and be American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) board eligible in their primary specialty.

We consider applicants from ALL types of residency programs. We have accepted clinical informatics fellows who have completed residencies and fellowships in emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, preventive medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and urology.

Yes. All applicants must meet the eligibility requirements noted above.

We sponsor H1B visas.

Like fellowships in other disciplines, core training in the discipline will occur during the fellowship. Also, similar to fellowships in other disciplines, some prior exposure to or documented interest in clinical informatics (for example an elective or project or scientific abstract in clinical informatics) is seen as a plus.

No formal computer science or programming background is required.

Interviews are held between September – November with invitations sent on an ongoing basis. Interview days fill up on a first come, first served basis.

Applications received by October 31 at midnight EST will be reviewed.

Interviews are held virtually.  An interview day generally consists of the following:

  1. An overview of our Clinical Informatics Fellowship program with core faculty.
  2. Individual virtual interviews with the Program Director, at least one core faculty member, one current first year and one current second-year Clinical Informatics Fellow, at least one interview with a non-physician member of the informatics or information services teams, and at least one interview with a physician in your clinical area.
  3. Group (possibly virtual) lunch.
  4. A tour of the MetroHealth System led by the Program Director.

Applications are accepted during the July cycle in ERAS. The program start date will be the July following interviews.

No. We accept clinical informatics fellows directly from residency programs and those who graduated from their residency program many years ago who are interested in informatics training.

Clinical informatics programs participate in the AMIA match. The match process will be discussed on your interview day.

We are accredited for a total of ten fellows. There are five fellows per year for two years.

This depends on your post-graduate year. Please see Salary and Benefits.

We allow moonlighting in our clinical informatics fellowship program. We do not provide specific clinical informatics related moonlighting opportunities. Many of our clinical informatics fellows pursue a variety of moonlighting opportunities related to their clinical specialty.

Our clinical informatics fellows do not participate in any clinical informatics related call. As part of their 30% clinical effort as an attending physician in their clinical field they would participate in prorated (30%) call for their clinical area.

Fellows are credentialed as attendings in their clinical specialty. They see patients independently without any supervision.

We are an Epic enterprise customer and use the Epic electronic health record for all our medical records, which we first went live with in 1999. We were the first public/safety-net healthcare system to ever install the Epic electronic health record and celebrated our 20th anniversary of our first Epic go-live with Epic Founder and CEO Judy Faulkner in the fall of 2019.

Cleveland is a great city to live in, having the pros of living in big metropolitan area with few cons. There are plenty of restaurants, parks, museums, festivals, and things to do around the city whether you are single or will be arriving with a family. Cleveland is especially beautiful in the summer. Cost of living is very reasonable, traffic isn’t something we worry about. For more information, see Living in Cleveland.

Additional Information