September 18, 2007
Purdue center receives $2.45 million grants for health-care research
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Regenstrief Foundation will fund research projects at Purdue to apply engineering principles to improve cancer care, telehealth and patient scheduling, university officials announced Tuesday (Sept. 18).The Indianapolis-based foundation, which helped launch Purdue's Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering in 2005, will invest $1.35 million in a joint Cancer-Care Engineering project involving Purdue, Indiana University and the Veterans Affairs Hospital. The project brings together oncologists, health service researchers, engineers, biologists and others in the war on cancer.
The Regenstrief Center at Purdue also will receive $1.1 million to research a more systematic approach to patient scheduling to reduce no-shows at hospitals and clinics.
University officials made the announcement during the Regenstrief Center's fall symposium, Transforming Healthcare Delivery: Advancing Multidisciplinary Research, which was taking place Tuesday (Sept. 18) at Purdue's Stewart Center.
As part of the second grant, Purdue researchers will design a national telehealth model to treat patients in rural and underserved areas who suffer from chronic illnesses. That grant also includes funding for managing databases related to these projects.
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"These issues affect our lives daily and directly impact how health care is delivered in this nation," said Purdue President France A. Córdova. "This expanded partnership between Purdue and the Regenstrief Foundation gives us the tools needed to make a difference in health care."
Leonard J. Betley, Regenstrief Foundation president, said he views this new funding as an investment that will equip physicians, nurses, medical staff and researchers with a blueprint for improving how health-care providers treat their patients.
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"In less than three years, Purdue's Regenstrief Center has successfully leveraged its initial $3 million in funding from the Regenstrief Foundation into $23 million in the form of sponsored research, strategic partner support and endowment funding," he said. "These projects build on Purdue's expertise in systems engineering, science and information technology as this nation seeks solutions to the grand challenges in health care."
The projects are:
• Cancer-Care Engineering: Using colorectal cancer data, this team will create tools to help improve prevention, treatment and care of those with cancer. Clinical data will be used to refine statistical and engineering simulation models to predict how to treat and possibly prevent cancer.
Chemical engineering professor Joseph Pekny and medicinal chemistry and pharmacology professor Marietta Harrison of Purdue are leading this project at Purdue.
They are collaborating with Drs. Stephen Williams and Patrick Loehrer at the IU School of Medicine and Dr. Bradley Doebbeling of the Roudebush Veterans Administration Hospital in Indianapolis. Other project partners include the Purdue Cancer Center, IU Simon Cancer Center, Regenstrief Institute Inc. and other Purdue Discovery Park centers, including the Oncological Sciences, e-Enterprise and Bindley Bioscience centers.
"Cancer Care Engineering reflects a more holistic approach to the war on cancer using the concept 'Bedside to Bench and Back,'" said Pekny, a Regenstrief Center faculty member. "Ultimately, we hope to develop a capability where state and nationwide medical records, medical claims, individual biological data and other large cancer data sets can be analyzed for trends in real time and enable treatment and policy decision-making."
• Telehealth: This project, led by Purdue communications professor Bart Collins, advances research to treat patients with chronic illnesses by integrating remote monitoring technologies with primary-care delivery systems. Telehealth uses communication technologies via the Internet and videoconferencing to help treat patients.
This research team will create analytic models that combine a patient's diagnostic information and data from home telehealth tracking factors to monitor and treat patients with chronic illnesses more effectively and affordably.
The Purdue center is already part of the Midwest Alliance for Telehealth and Technology Resources, a $1 million regional partnership focusing on how telehealth networks can serve rural and underserved residents in Indiana, Michigan and Kansas. Purdue is working with Michigan State University, University of Kansas and Marquette General Hospital in Marquette, Mich.
• Patient scheduling: Led by Purdue biomedical engineering professor Mark Lawley, an expert in systems modeling and control, the project will research patient behavioral patterns so providers can implement more effective and reliable scheduling methods. The goal is to improve clinic access by reducing appointment waits and physician time lost because of patient no-shows.
Research indicates that as many as 33 percent of patients have trouble scheduling timely appointments with their primary-care physician, and no-shows at hospitals and clinics can run as high as 50 percent in some areas, depending on demographics and public transit options.
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Regenstrief Center director Steven Witz, who also is Purdue's St. Vincent Health Chair of Healthcare Engineering, said this funding will help the center expand its focus on providing the data and research results to improve the efficiency, quality and safety of health-care delivery.
"The Regenstrief Center is successfully deploying engineering principles in the areas of health care precisely in order to free practitioners - doctors, nurses and support personnel - to spend their time with patients and to focus their attention on patient concerns," Witz said.
Regenstrief helped create the Indiana Patient Safety Center in 2007 and was instrumental in a policy change to expand federal funding opportunities for Indiana's telehealth efforts. This spring, center researchers also completed an Indiana State Department of Health project that outlined response gaps with the state's 94 county health departments in the event of a pandemic outbreak.
Writer: Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu
Sources: France A. Córdova, (765) 494-9708
Leonard Betley, (317) 848-1400
Steven Witz, (765) 496-8303, switz@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Regenstrief is pronounced REE-gen-streef. Reporters who want to interview Steven Witz or any of the project leaders after the announcement on Tuesday (Sept. 18) can contact Phillip Fiorini, Purdue News Service, at (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu . Many of the project leaders also will make formal presentations during the symposium, which runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Purdue's Stewart Center, Room 218. For a complete schedule of the day's presentations, go online to https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/rche/fall2007/registration.html
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