Funded Projects

• Dashboard Best Practices
• Data Mining for MRSA Infections
• Hospital Acquired Infections
• Integrating Decision Support
• Mental Health Simulation Study
• MRSA Reduction
• Perioperative System Reengineering Program

Research Working Groups

• Operating Room Scheduling / Workflow Research
• Health Information Technology R&D
• Patient-Centered Clinical Workflow
• Clinical Dashboards R&D
• Conceptual Implementation Frameworks and Models

"Spreading Techniques to Radically Reduce MRSA" is a $1.89M contract funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) and a follow up to an earlier MRSA project at Regenstrief that emphasized our strengths as a model collaborative center. Preliminary results from an earlier funded project suggest that MRSA - methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - infection rates were reduced as much as 60% on project units and up to 20% hospital wide. To capitalize on that success, we have recruited LEAN coaches from Purdue University and Positive Deviance (PD) coaches from the Plexus Institute and Albert Einstein Medical Center to spread our effective three-pronged intervention consisting of active surveillance of all patients entering intervention units, isolation of MRSA-positive patients, and increased hand hygiene.

After a selective application process, four local hospital systems (Clarian, Community, St. Francis, and St. Vincent) and three other systems outside Indiana (Maine Medical Center, St. Patrick’s Health System, and University Health Network) were selected as sites for study intervention. Techniques of lean engineering (a method, originally used in industrial engineering, to identify and remove lean and waste from processes, as well as eliminate barriers to success) and positive deviance (asset-based, problem-solving, and community-driven approach that aims at identifying the "positive deviant" in an organization that always manages to thrive, as well as realizing that the true experts are the workers who perform the job on a daily basis) were used to equip front line staff and leaders with the tools they need to enact change in their own environment.

Through close collaboration with Regenstrief Institute’s Medical Informatics group and Dr. Abel Kho at Northwestern, we are also working to automate the reporting process to make tracking MRSA infections quicker and less labor intensive for front line staff. With the combination of our proven intervention, lean and PD training of front line staff, and the informatics effort to automate tracking of MRSA infections, this project has the ability to markedly reduce costly and life-threatening infections.

Funded by AHRQ Contract HHSA290200600013 task order 5 2008-2011

• IU•CHSOR
• IU
• IUPUI
• IU School of Medicine
• Regenstrief Institute

• Health Information and Translational Sciences (HITS) Building
• 410 West 10th Street, Suite 2000
• Indianapolis, IN 46202
• 317.423.5504