Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering

Research Focus: Care Coordination

Care coordination among providers and patients is essential in creating better quality of care and more patient-centered care. Care coordination is the marshalling of personnel and other resources needed to support a continuous healing environment, enabled by integrated clinical services and characterized by the proactive delivery of evidence-based care and follow-up.

The National Partnership for Priorities estimates that patients with chronic conditions may have up to 16 different healthcare providers. Electronic health records will assist in improving care coordination but there are many other opportunities to coordinate care and engage patients in their healthcare. In particular, RCHE is interested in pursuit research projects that aim to improve care coordination in the primary care setting and for patients with chronic diseases.

Projects in care coordination have focused on:

• Physician-patient communication

• Scheduling

• The patient-centered medical home

• Health information technology

Faculty working on care coordination projects have represented areas such as nursing, ITaP, human development and family sciences, biomedical engineering, management operations, and communication.

Examples of care coordination research include:

• Collaborating for better patient safety: Infusion Pump Informatics System