Kaiser Permanente Med School
Between insurance and healthcare services, you’d think that Kaiser Permanente would have their hands full. That hasn’t stopped them from announcing plans to open a new medical school in Pasadena, CA, slated to open in the summer of 2020.
The problem of physician burnout is real and, regardless of the cause, it can create an increased demand for more doctors in addition to the needs that already exist.
In a rare move, the company said that tuition will be waived for its first five incoming classes. This will obviously go a long way toward interesting prospective students. When NYU eliminated medical school tuition, it saw a 47% increase in applications. Kaiser is able to offer this tuition by relying on their ‘community benefits’ revenue, a required portion of revenue devoted to community health spending, and a requirement to be tax-exempt.
This is a significant hurdle that is eliminated for prospective students, particularly for those interested in specializing in less lucrative fields. The Association of American Medical Colleges reported that 76% of medical school graduates leave school with debt, at a median of $192,000 in 2017.
The school will be a state-of-the-art facility, with technologies including augmented and virtual reality, touch-interface anatomy stations, and collaborative work and conferencing spaces. The school will also jump straight into hands-on training in the first year, forgoing lectures and utilizing their own hospitals and clinics.
The focus will be on more than just technology, though, as the New York Times reports that Kaiser, “will be teaching medical students how to be aggressive champions for their patients.” They want doctors to be able to more readily work with advocacy groups and the press to be able to make substantive changes in healthcare.
The healthcare space is very near and dear to our hearts at Extract, as we help hospitals and other organizations simplify their workflows to increase data accuracy and deliver better patient care. Please reach out if you’d like to learn more about how we accomplish this mission.
