Care Episode Research

The care episode is defined as a complete, self-contained medical interaction between a patient and healthcare provider with a defined clinical objective. This area of research aims to enhance the quality, safety, patient satisfaction, and cost of episodic medical interactions to bring significant change in the overall quality of healthcare delivery.

Mark Lawley, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering

Kumar Muthuraman, University of Texas professor of industrial engineering
Laura Sands, Purdue professor of nursing
Deanna Willis, medical director of quality and medical management with the Indiana University Medical Group

Joanne Daggy, Statistics doctoral student

Wishard, Indiana University Medical Group

Clinical managers and physicians are usually quick to identify inadequate patient scheduling as a major source of operational inefficiency and patient dissatisfaction. The expertise to implement advanced scheduling methods does not exist in most clinics, and clinical information technologies do not easily support data and computational needs. In addition, many published methods inadequately address many routine and important factors that complicate optimal scheduling.

Lawley has been awarded $459,000 over three years by the National Science Foundation. Pre- and post-implementation studies will measure patient satisfaction, clinic access, waiting times, and clinic efficiency (i.e., operating revenues and costs). Lawley's research will be implemented in two large clinics associated with the Indiana University Medical Group that serve a large urban population of indigent and uninsured patients that is disproportionately minority.

Point of Care Audit and Feedback Tools to Improve Patient Safety

Lisa Hopp, Ph.D., RN, Nursing Calumet

Susan Schachitti, MBA, Industrial Engineering Technology Calumet
Lasa Mapa, Ph.D., Industrial Engineering Technology Calumet
Charlene Gyurko, Ph.D., RN, Nursing Calumet
Jane Walker, Ph.D., RN, Nursing, Calumet

Doreen Zokvic, RN, Nursing Graduate Student
Melissa Grzybowski, Nursing Graduate Student

St. Mary's Medical Center, Hobart IN

The long term objectives are to improve patient safety by implementing evidence-based nursing practices using audit and feedback and the application of quality improvement principles to decrease reasonably preventable hospital acquired complications. Health system structures, processes and outcomes will be analyzed by the research team to determine the applicability and effectiveness of a newly developed suite of evidence implementation tools.

Measuring and Reporting Quality Performance and Medication Safety in Community Pharmacy

Kent Summers, R.Ph., Ph.D., Pharmacy
Carol Birk, MS, PharmaTAP

TBD

Indiana Health Information Exchange
Regenstrief Institute
Eli Lilly and Compnay Pharmacy Quality Alliance

This research will develop reports of measures of pharmacy quality performance and mediciation safety, including prescription drug utilization reports to compare patterns across pharmacies.

Care Cycle Research

The care cycle is made up of multiple care episodes for continuous needs (such as chronic illness, which can include episodes of preventive education, screenings, vaccinations, diagnosis, treatment and disease management). Care-cycle analysis includes the evaluation, improvement and coordination across multiple episodes of care.

Telehealth, information and communication technologies in primary care

Bart Collins, Ph.D., Communication

Scott Schaffer, Ph.D., Education

TBD

Community Health Network

Communication technologies linking patients with providers have traditionally served niche segments of the healthcare delivery market and have largely focused on specialty care needs. New technologies, including web, elearning, and social networking technologies can also play a role in bridging patients and providers in meaningful and scaleable ways.

Collins and his colleagues are collaborating with a variety of partners to look at how web based systems can be used to monitor patient health status, patient compliance with behavioral recommendations, and patient motivation and knowledge. Collins’ research focuses on how patient self-care ability, health literacy, and related factors are influenced by information and media consumption and how healthcare providers can leverage patient-oriented information systems to assess patient risk and define appropriate interventions.

Health Literacy, Medication Burden and Self Care Behaviors in Patients with Heart Failure Across Multiple Care Settings

Kimberly Plake, Ph.D., RPh, Pharmacy Practice

Karen Yehle, Ph.D., MS, CNS-BC, Nursing

Aleda M. Hess, PharmD, Pharmacy Practice and Gerontology

TBD

Heart failure is a chronic illness which requires health-related skills, such as monitoring and appropriately taking medications. Inadequate health literacy on the part of the patient or the caregiver may lead to poor self-care or increased medication burdens. This research team is working to determine the impact of health literacy on self-care ability and medication administration among heart failure patients. If inadequate health literacy is found to be associated with either poor self-care and/or increased medication burdens, educational interventions can be designed to improve healthcare delivery to heart failure patients.

Care Support Research

Care support describes the supply and service processes necessary to provide care. The objective of this research is to examine processes by which human resources, materials and capital are deployed to support the execution of care episodes and care cycles.

Improving Provider Adoption of IT

Vince Duffy, Ph.D., Industrial Engineering

Ashley Benedict, industrial engineering doctoral student

WellPoint, Inc.

Duffy and his research team are working to develop a framework by which physician adoption of e-prescribing systems can be predicted and evaluated. In the project’s first phase, the team will use human performance engineering to determine categories of critical technology, human factors and organizational characteristics that influence physicians’ willingness to adopt an e-prescribing system.

The second phase involves the development, modification and testing of a lab version of the e-prescribing system using first-phase findings. Purdue has established a consulting relationship with Doug Bell, a UCLA Medical Center researcher who previously completed product and system evaluations for WellPoint. During the final project phase, the Regenstrief Center research team aims to gain cooperation from software contractors to embed critical characteristics and software functionality in a reviewed e-prescribing system.

Modeling the Supply Chains for Healthcare Products

Leroy B. Schwarz, Ph.D., Management

Vinayak Deshpande, Ph.D., Management

TBD

VHA, Inc., Ascension Health

The primary long-term objective of this research is increased efficiency in the management of the supply chains used to distribute healthcare products, specifically medical/surgical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and (orthotic and cardiovascular) devices. It is expected that this increased efficiency will be based on enhanced information-sharing, collaborative decision-making and mechanism design. Although the cost of these products accounts for only about 13% of the US healthcare dollar, for most hospitals these products are the second-largest "variable" cost.

Patient Outcomes Research

Outcomes research examines the effect of the healthcare processes on patients and populations. This area of research studies variation in practice patterns, determines which treatment options work best for different people, develops criteria for when certain procedures should or should not be performed, identifies patient preferences when multiple treatment options are available, and develops tools to measure changes in health status and patient satisfaction with health care processes.

Impact of Insufficient Community-Based Long Term Care on Medicare Expenditures

Laura Sands, Ph.D., Nursing
Joseph Thomas III, Ph.D., Pharmacy Practice

Huiping Xu, Ph.D., Statistics

Lori Ward, Pharmacy graduate student
Ziaoqin Yang, Pharmacy graduate student

Indiana Office of Medicaid Planning and Policy

Approximately 20% of disabled older adults report they do not have sufficient personal assistance for their disabilities that reequire assistance in one or more basic activities of everyday living. Prior studies have provided evidence that insufficient long-term care increases the need for acute care services.

This research is directed toward informing payers of community-based long-term care about current methods of determining which long-term care services and how much of each of these services should be allocated to a recipient.

Optimal Long-Term Care Resource Allocation for Older Adults Enrolled in Medicaid

Nan Kong, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering
Laura Sands, Ph.D., Nrusing
Mark Lawley, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering
Joseph Thomas, Ph.D., Pharmacy

TBD

Indiana Medicaid

The broad objective of this research is to design and implement cost-effective resource and service allocation in providing long-term care. This research aims to: 1) provide states with valuable insights and clear targets in coordinating and managing long-term care and 2) support decision-making for individual patients on long-term care services.

Project Videos

These videos highlight some of the first-generation seed projects completed through the Regenstrief Center.

Back to top