PharmaTAP director named as Executive Director of the Indianapolis Patient Safety Coalition

Carol Birk, Director of PharmaTAP, Purdue University, has been named Executive Director of the Indianapolis Patient Safety Coalition. Since being founded in 2003, the Coalition provides a forum for Indianapolis-area hospitals to share information about ‘best practices’ and work together to solve the most concerning patient safety issues in Indianapolis hospitals in a non-punitive setting.

“Carol brings a solid background in catalyzing improvement in patient safety, clinical quality and efficiency in a multitude of settings,” said Dr. Glenn Bingle, chair of the Coalition and Community Health Network vice president for medical and academic affairs. “Her extensive experience assembling multi-disciplinary teams will support the existing work and structure of the Coalition and help to bring its knowledge to a broader set of healthcare providers.” Press release

Center research group designs web-based self-care management and e-learning portals for chronic diseases

Healthcare Informatics and Learning Technologies (HILT) is a new effort to coordinate research activity with center partners around the use of information, collaboration, and learning technologies to expand and enhance healthcare delivery options. Bart Collins, professor of communication and Scott Schaffer, professor of educational technology, oversee a variety of projects related to provider-patient interaction through telehealth systems, on-line patient learning environments, and health information web portals.

This summer, HILT is concentrating on research and development of web-based environments to support self-care and education needs of patients with chronic diseases, such as heart failure and diabetes. More