CHSOR Overview
"To bring to the practice of medicine the most modern scientific advances from engineering, business, and the social sciences, and to foster the rapid dissemination into medical practice of the new knowledge created by research." -- Sam Regenstrief, April 7, 1967
The IU Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research (CHSOR) is an interdisciplinary IUPUI campus-wide center established to build on the expertise of its faculty in assessing factors essential to implementing health care systems improvement. Together we examine the complete picture of healthcare - from the level of the patient, care team, organization, medical community, and environment - to streamline the delivery of care and distinctly improve the health of patients.
Established in 2003, the Center is young and growing, with 18 core research investigators, and double that number affiliate investigators from across Indiana and Purdue universities and IUPUI. More than 25 research, administrative and data management staff support their work.
CHSOR is nested within the IU School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute. Our counterpart research hub is the Center on Implementing Evidence-Based Practice, a national Center of Excellence for the VA Health Services Research and Development Service. Our workshop sits a short walk from campus along the White River, at the Indianapolis Roudebush VA Medical Center, recognized among the American Hospital Association’s Most Wired Hospitals for successfully applying information technology tools to business processes, customer service, occupational and public health, and safety and quality in medical care.
Mission, Vision, and Research Priorities:
The mission of the Center is to advance the science of transforming the health care system, locally, regionally and nationally. The Center was established in 2003 through funding from Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. There are currently 16 faculty researchers (MD and PhD) whose primary academic mission fits within this Center. Our vision is to become the leading national research resource for learning about health system transformation. Our strategy is to partner with managers, clinicians, patients and other researchers in interdisciplinary teams to innovate, foster system redesign and drive broad scale adoption of changes to improve care delivery.
Within this overall mission and vision, our research priorities are to: 1) organize health services, management and engineering researchers at IUPUI and Purdue into a cohesive research and development center; 2) provide infrastructure and synergies to lower the costs of health care systems redesign, implementation and dissemination; 3) react quickly and aggressively to provide high quality service and pursue extramural funding opportunities to improve health care in Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and the Midwest; and 4) foster effective research partnerships with local and regional healthcare systems, healthcare organizations, government, other academic entities, and industry on the IUPUI campus and in Indiana.
Faculty of the IU CHSOR and Roudebush VAMC were recently designated a VA Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Center of Excellence in Implementing Evidence-based Practice (CIEBP), see www.ciebp.research.va.gov). We have collaborations with over 50 investigators from a broad range of disciplines and partnerships with over 15 schools and centers at IUPUI and Purdue. Core research development activities include leading the IU NIH K30 Clinician Investigator Training Enhancement program, key partners in the Indiana Patient Safety Center, and participating in the Indiana Genomics Executive Committee, the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety, Indiana Medicaid, Indiana Mental Health Association, and others. IU CHSOR is one of the three programs of the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. We are strategic partners with the IU School of Medicine, IUPUI, Purdue University, Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, and the VA Center of Excellence in Implementing Evidence-based Practice. Our center investigators direct the Indiana Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Center (Dr. Salyers) and the IUPUI Center for Assessing, Understanding and Managing Pain (Drs. Bair and Kroenke).