INDIANAPOLIS — The new headquarters of the Regenstrief Institute Inc., a global leader in biomedical informatics, health services and aging research, will be at 10th Street and Riley Drive in Indianapolis. The groundbreaking ceremony was conducted Oct. 8 on the campus of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
The four-story, 80,000-square-foot building, designed for the needs of the growing institute, will enhance and empower the institute’s highly respected local, national and global research.
A nonprofit medical research organization dedicated to improving the quality, cost-effectiveness and outcomes of health care in Indiana, across the United States and around the world, the Regenstrief Institute has been supported since its founding by the Regenstrief Foundation, which has committed $5 million to the new building. The IU School of Medicine has contributed another $1.5 million. The institute is closely affiliated with the IU School of Medicine, Eskenazi Health, the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center and IU Health.
The new Regenstrief Institute headquarters, designed by Schmidt Associates of Indianapolis on land leased from IU, will house more than 50 investigators, about 165 staff members and a growing number of affiliated scientists. Regenstrief investigators are faculty members of the IU School of Medicine, other schools at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, or Purdue University.
The new building is near IU School of Medicine research and teaching facilities and in close proximity to Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital, the Roudebush VA Medical Center, Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health and IU Health University Hospital. Regenstrief investigators work closely with the patients, clinicians, students, trainees and administrators of all these organizations. The majority of Regenstrief’s investigators hold appointments as IU School of Medicine faculty physicians practicing and teaching in these hospitals.
“Breaking ground for our new headquarters is momentous for both the Regenstrief Institute and the IU School of Medicine,” said Regenstrief Institute President and CEO William M. Tierney, M.D., who also serves as associate dean for clinical effectiveness research at the IU School of Medicine. “The institute serves to draw faculty investigators of many backgrounds into multidisciplinary teams to solve difficult problems for U.S. health care. These collaborations will be much easier now that we will be together in one building within easy walking distance of our health care partner institutions.”
“Collaboration is the cornerstone of success in health care research,” said Jay L. Hess, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the IU School of Medicine and vice president for university clinical affairs at IU. “Having the researchers from Regenstrief Institute in a state-of-the-art facility on the IU School of Medicine campus will ultimately translate into better care for residents in Indiana and beyond.”
Regenstrief investigators developed and operate the Regenstrief Medical Record System, which has served as the electronic medical record system for Eskenazi Health (formerly Wishard Health) since 1973. The Regenstrief Medical Record System is the oldest continually operational medical record system in the United States.
In Kenya, institute scientists created one of the first truly scalable electronic medical record systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. That platform has evolved into OpenMRS, a multi-institution, nonprofit collaborative launched by the institute and used in the U.S. and dozens of other countries.
Health services researchers at Regenstrief conduct wide-ranging, interdisciplinary studies to improve health systems, especially for older adults, that identify, study and then disseminate best practices for sustainable impact on quality of care, clinical outcomes, health care costs and the medical experience for patients, patient families, clinicians and the health care system. Continually engaging the community, in 2013 the institute conducted the inaugural People’s Choice for Healthcare Delivery contest.
The IU Center for Aging Research, based in the institute, is an international leader in research in depression, delirium, the healthy aging brain, nursing home quality improvement, palliative care, surrogate decision-making by patient family members, and community participation in studies. IU-CAR includes the IU Edward R. Roybal Center for Translation Research on Chronic Disease Self-Management Among Vulnerable Older Adults. One of only 13 National Institute on Aging-funded Roybal Centers nationwide, the IU Roybal Center seeks to improve self-management among vulnerable older adults by primary care physicians.
Regenstrief holds prestigious biennial research conferences on topics of institute expertise. “The 2014 Regenstrief Institute Think Tank Conference: Using Innovation and Implementation Science to Transform Healthcare,” took place earlier this month. The proceedings will be published next year.
Founded in 1969 as the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care by Indiana businessman and philanthropist Sam Regenstrief with an initial faculty and staff of less than a dozen, institute research, clinical tools and models of health care have been widely adopted across the health care spectrum. Institute studies have been published in the nation’s most frequently cited peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Regenstrief investigators receive funding from the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and numerous other sources.
“Sam Regenstrief was not much interested in buildings as such,” said Leonard Betley, J.D., life director of the Regenstrief Foundation. “However, he was very interested in what occurs within a building. The institute’s long-standing interest in what is currently called population health management and, particularly, the application of systems concepts to the delivery of health care was at the heart of his early vision. He would be very pleased that this building has become necessary due to the continuing and growing accomplishments of the Institute he founded 45 years ago.”