Kaiser Permanente announces new medical school in California

[WayOutWestMom]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/kaiser-permanente-to-launch-medical-school-1450368001

Kaiser Permanente will launch a medical school focused on training students in its integrated style of care, in the latest sign of growing efforts to expand and reshape traditional physician education.

The big Oakland, Calif.-based managed-care operator said it would build the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in southern California, with the goal of enrolling a first class of 48 students in 2019. Kaiser Permanente, a nonprofit that wraps together health plans and health-care providers, will structure the school as a new nonprofit subsidiary and fund the startup costs itself, executives said; they declined to say how much Kaiser planned to invest in the effort.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kaiser-school-of-medicine-20151217-story.html

Kaiser Permanente said it plans to establish a medical school in Southern California.

The nonprofit health system said Thursday it hasn’t selected a site yet for the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. Classes will begin in 2019.

Many details about the school haven’t been finalized, such as its location and what facilities will be built at the new campus. The first class of about 50 students should start in the fall of 2019, and enrollment will grow after that, Kaiser said.

In the coming months, Kaiser said, it would establish the medical school’s legal entity and organizational structure as well as begin the process for accreditation. Another priority for next year is to hire the school’s dean.

I’ve checked LCME and COCA and neither accrediting body reports an even a preliminary application for credentialing from Kaiser. I’m not sure if this for real or just PR propaganda.

Based on the LA Times article, Kaiser’s med school would be private and charge tuition & fees equivalent to other private med schools.

Kaiser has been kicking around this proposal for a few years and floated a trial balloon as early as 2010:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2937845/

[jalfred]

“I’m not sure if this for real or just PR propaganda.”
If it helps alleviate your understandable skepticism, before the public announcement was made a notice was sent to all current KP docs that yes, this was the real thing and KP was moving forward with the med school.

[mom2collegekids]

Will the grads be expected to eventually become Kaiser doctors?

Will this be a MD or DO school?