Intermountain Partners With U. of Utah on Population Health Program
Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare has announced a partnership with the University of Utah to jointly develop a new medical educational program to be used to train the next generation of physicians in population health.
The nonprofit Intermountain, which has 24 hospitals, said it is investing $50 million over multiple years in the initiative, which will help train and prepare physicians to not only consider a person’s immediate medical needs, but also the social determinants of health.
Specifically, the investment from Intermountain will:
• Establish the University of Utah Intermountain Healthcare Population Health Student Scholars Program at University of Utah School of Medicine.
• Provide tuition support for medical students accepted into the program. There will be 10 students in the entering class of 2021 and 2022 and 25 students in each entering class thereafter.
• Provide an opportunity for the university to seek legislative and accreditation approvals to increase the number of medical students in each class.
• Support development of a population health medical education curriculum that will serve as a model for the nation.
• Create three endowed professorships, the Intermountain Population Health Sciences Professors, and four Intermountain Population Health Endowed Chairs in the University of Utah School of Medicine.
These faculty will teach the student scholars and lead research and clinical education opportunities.
“I’m proud that these two organizations are leading the nation in developing a cadre of physicians specifically prepared to deliver this innovative approach to communities,” said Marc Harrison, M.D., president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, in a statement. “Working with patients holistically will improve the health of all, most notably the vulnerable and underserved, who are too often left behind.”
The organizations said that Utah will benefit from the expertise of clinicians trained in the new program. After physician scholars graduate and subsequently complete their residency training—which is often carried out elsewhere in the country—they are committed to returning as a practitioner at Intermountain Healthcare or a partner organization in one of six population health specialties.
“This is the future of healthcare,” Harrison added. “How we train physicians from the very beginning of their studies will help develop the medical providers of the future who are focused on wellness rather than illness.”
This could mean integrating social workers into healthcare teams to assist with financial needs or connecting patients with exercise groups. It could also mean equipping patients who have diabetes with digital devices so that providers are alerted when their blood glucose swings too high or too low. Or those providers could reach out to patients in times of need, even if they don’t have a scheduled visit.
“This program will change the way doctors think about providing medical care,” says Angie Fagerlin, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Population Health at the University of Utah, in a statement. “They will better understand how to identify barriers to good health and how to get around them. This will change medicine in a fundamental way.”
