WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University will be expanding its capacity to “create, verify and deliver” innovative solutions in the healthcare field with the further development of the university’s Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering.
This center, according to a release from Purdue, will further enhance the Regenstrief Foundation’s mission through multidisciplinary approaches to medicine in its health care research.
“We first will listen to the communities we serve,” said Pavlos Vlachos, director of RCHE and the St. Vincent Health Professor of Healthcare Engineering. “Our holistic approach puts the community and patient at the center of everything we do. We want to listen to patients and clinicians, to identify needs, and then harness Purdue’s vast talent to develop, test and validate solutions. RCHE will act as a bridge carrying the benefits of research and discovery directly to the people they are designed to help.”
According to the release, RCHE’s work is designed to further develop four areas, verbatim:
-
Health Systems. Improve health care delivery and patient outcomes by deploying sustainable solutions in health systems, by integrating Purdue’s excellence in engineering, modeling, artificial intelligence, human factors, organizational behavior and the social sciences.
-
Population Health and Health Equity. Translate discovery and innovation into real-world solutions to improve population health and address the root causes of health inequities through meaningful community engagement.
-
Health Data Science. Harness the power of health and health care data via Purdue’s strengths in computer science, statistics and mathematics to improve patients’ experiences, outcomes and population health.
-
Health Education and Communication. Break down communication boundaries to translate innovative solutions that can improve everyone’s health and well-being.
“This expansion of work in health care improvement is a very important step for Purdue and for the people of Indiana,” said Dr. Jerome Adams, former U.S. surgeon general and Purdue’s first executive director of health equity initiatives, in the release. “RCHE will broaden and magnify valuable work already being done at Purdue to promote health equity. Until health care is consistently accessible, affordable and of high quality, these will be our goals. These goals are worthy challenges for the best minds, so this is the right challenge for Purdue, and this is the right approach.”
Recently, through the I-HOPE program, RCHE has taken the lead in reducing health disparities throughout the state, according to the release. In the coming years, RCHE and its collaborators will interact with 30 Indiana counties to boost local strengths and build network connections with people to their needed health services.
“This effort and other key initiatives rely heavily on the Purdue Healthcare Advisors, a team of 30 specialists in health equity and lean methodology, as well as RCHE’s teams of faculty and clinical affiliates and data scientists,” the release states. “They will all collaborate on work to improve the quality, accessibility, equity and affordability of health care delivery.”
Theresa Mayer, executive vice president for research and partnerships at Purdue stated that, “…the expanded focus of the new organization will enable us to leverage our research expertise to grow our impact on the community in Indiana and beyond.”
link