A two-year ACGME-accredited subspecialty program for physicians from any ABMS specialty — housed in Emergency Medicine, built across the full UC San Diego Health enterprise, and taught by the people who run informatics here. You graduate board-eligible and ready to lead.
The UC San Diego Clinical Informatics Fellowship is a two-year ACGME-accredited subspecialty program for physicians from any ABMS specialty. Fellows complete the requirements for board certification through the American Board of Preventive Medicine and graduate eligible to sit for the Clinical Informatics subspecialty exam.
The fellowship is hosted by the Department of Emergency Medicine but draws faculty, rotations, and partnerships from across UC San Diego Health — including the Center for Health Innovation (CHI), the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), the Center for Healthcare Cybersecurity, and UCSD Health IS operations.
Our fellows leave able to design and lead EHR build work, evaluate and govern clinical AI models, run formal improvement projects using their Lean training, conduct usability and workflow analyses, and step into informatics leadership roles — CMIO track, vendor-side informatics, academic clinical informaticist, or operational clinical informaticist in a health system.
Clinical Informatics was recognized as a board-certified subspecialty by the ABMS in 2011, with the first board exam administered in 2013 and the first ACGME-accredited fellowship programs in 2014. The UCSD program is one of 60+ accredited programs in the country.
The fellowship is open to physicians from any ABMS specialty who have completed a primary residency. Fellows complete certification through the American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM).
The practice-pathway window for board certification has closed — fellowship training is now the only route to subspecialty certification. This is a one-way door, and it's why the fellowship matters more than it used to.
Clinical Informatics formally recognized as a subspecialty.
Administered by ABPM.
The fellowship pathway becomes available.
Fellowship training is now the only route to certification.
ERAS opens July 2026. AMIA match in fall.
The fellowship sits at the intersection of four institutions that don't always overlap this cleanly elsewhere.
Three acute care hospitals — Jacobs Medical Center (La Jolla), Hillcrest Medical Center (Hillcrest), East Campus Medical Center (La Mesa) — plus 40 outpatient clinic sites across San Diego County. UC San Diego Health runs Epic as its EHR, with the full enterprise stack — Bridges interfaces, Reporting Workbench, Tapestry, Beacon. Affiliated training sites (Palomar Health, El Centro Regional Medical Center) run Oracle Health / Cerner, giving fellows exposure to more than one vendor environment. Active CMIO office and IT governance.
UCSD's institutional home for health AI/ML research, governance, and clinical deployment. Fellows embed directly with the CHI team. Active portfolio across imaging, ambient documentation, sepsis prediction, and clinical decision augmentation.
UCSD's Department of Biomedical Informatics. NLM-funded informatics training programs, faculty collaborations for fellows pursuing research projects, and shared seminar access throughout the fellowship.
UCSD's Center for Healthcare Cybersecurity studies the clinical impact of cyberattacks — ransomware, medical-device and EHR vulnerabilities, and downtime resilience — and runs high-fidelity attack simulations. Fellows can engage its faculty on the safety side of health IT.
Fellows are UCSD Health house staff, employed under the collective bargaining agreement between UC San Diego Health and the San Diego House Staff Association (SDHSA–CIR/SEIU). Everything below is contractual, not discretionary.
Salary follows the UCSD Health house staff PGY scale, with placement set by GME based on completed years of relevant training and research. Fellows advance one PGY step on reappointment. The former separate housing stipend was folded into the base salary scale, which is set to account for San Diego cost of living.
Per program year: 28 calendar days of vacation, twelve sick days (accrued monthly, carried over on reappointment), and up to five paid professional leave days for scholarly activity. Fourteen recognized University holidays. Paid parental bonding leave at full salary, pregnancy disability leave, family illness and bereavement leave, FMLA/CFRA, military leave, and paid jury duty.
An annual educational stipend ($950 under the current agreement) paid each fall. UCSD reimburses the full cost of a new or renewed California medical license. The program additionally supports fellow travel to national informatics meetings — AMIA Annual Symposium, AMIA Amplify — as part of the fellowship's academic expectations.
A $200/month meal allowance credited through the UCSDH EATS system. Three uniform items at appointment — white coat, scrubs, or logo jacket — with laundering at no charge. Parking at the same rates as other UCSD Health employees, with annual increases capped. Sleep rooms at all sites and secured house staff lounges at Hillcrest and Jacobs. Fatigue-mitigation transportation home reimbursed when you're too tired to drive.
Medical, dental, and vision coverage plus disability through the UC Residents Benefits program, with a house staff flexible spending account. Professional liability coverage under the University's self-insurance program at $1M per claim / $3M aggregate, extending to approved rotations outside the UCSD system and to claims filed after training ends.
Fellows are represented by SDHSA–CIR/SEIU, with academic due process under the House Officer Policy and Procedure Document and a formal non-academic grievance procedure. A resident wellness committee with institutional funding for its initiatives, and ACGME-backed protection of time to attend your own medical, mental health, and dental appointments.
An ACGME-accredited two-year program built around real clinical AI work in San Diego. Start your ERAS application, or reach out with questions.