Emergent Medical Associates

Emergent Medical Associates (EMA) is a physician-led organization that provides emergency and episodic care management services across the Western United States. The group partners with hospitals to improve emergency department operations, quality metrics, and patient outcomes—often referred to as the “EMA Effect.” EMA supports more than 500 providers across 20+ sites and treats over 1 million patients annually, with a strong emphasis on operational efficiency, data-driven performance, and clinical excellence.

A key differentiator for EMA is its focus on physician leadership development through its Emergency Medicine Administrative Fellowship. This one-year program blends clinical work with hands-on administrative training in areas such as healthcare finance, operations, policy, quality improvement, and business strategy.

A major component of the fellowship is its partnership with the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business. Through this collaboration, fellows enroll in the Physician Executive MBA (PEMBA) program—one of the longest-running physician-focused MBA programs in the world—and graduate with an MBA alongside a cohort of experienced healthcare professionals. This combination of real-world emergency department leadership training and formal business education is designed to prepare physicians for executive and leadership roles within healthcare systems.

Overall, EMA positions itself not just as a clinical staffing organization, but as a leadership pipeline—training physicians to become both high-performing clinicians and healthcare executives.