Phase II I/UCRC Pennsylvania State University Site: Center for Health Organization Transformation

Phase II I/UCRC Pennsylvania State University Site: Center for Health Organization Transformation The U.S. healthcare system is a global leader in terms of scientific and clinical technology development. However, with expenditures at 17.1% of the GDP, significant gaps in terms of access and quality exist, along with rates of morbidity and mortality that are substantially worse than other industrialized nations. The mission of CHOT is to advance the knowledge and practice of transformational strategies in evidenced-based healthcare management and clinical practice. The development of transformative approaches will necessitate involving partners from all sectors of healthcare including IT providers, systems solutions providers, care providers, insurers, and employers with large healthcare coverage programs. The realization that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to healthcare is unsustainable has motivated the modeling, development and deployment of personalized advanced wellness systems (PAWS). PAWS transcends traditional boundaries existing within healthcare systems, ranging from personalized patient care models (from a patient?s perspective), to personalized drug delivery systems (from a healthcare decision maker's perspective). CHOT is the only industry-university cooperative research center focused on innovations in healthcare delivery. The Center's interdisciplinary approach will deliver integrated and broadly applicable solutions and will enhance the education of the next generation of healthcare policy experts, physicians, nurses, and engineers. Undergraduate and graduate students become a part of a high-performing multidisciplinary organization that provides an ecosystem for networking, leadership, and career placement. It is expected that the work of the Center will result in improved health care quality and more effective use of financial and system resources in the health system, while providing immediate decision support to industry. CHOT has identified four research areas in order to meet the needs of our members as well as the healthcare industry: macro-systems innovation; health quality, safety, access, and efficiency; patient-centered care and population health interventions; electronic health records and information exchange. The underlying theme of personalized advanced wellness systems (PAWS) is achieved through fundamental research in value-based care, time-driven activity based costing, person-centered care, medical device design and integration, emergency department benchmarking, community paramedicine, telehealth and wellness, and precision medicine and precision health. A concerted plan of seven research projects will be supported by research methods in systems engineering. In particular, systems thinking and system dynamics methods will be combined with simulation, data analytics, and machine learning in order to develop models that can inform the prospective assessment of interventions and innovations. In order to bridge gap between what is learned/discovered and what is done in practice/ management, knowledge-to-action (KTA) initiatives will be pursued, with a view toward technology readiness in order to increase the impact of these projects.