[10/20/2009]    Integrated health care delivery systems center established

University Park, Pa. — Penn State has established the Center for Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (CIHDS), which will promote a holistic approach to understanding problems of access and quality in health care.

"The creation of the center is an ambitious next step in our vision for transformational sciences," said Eva Pell, senior vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School. "It is conceived as a cross-campus initiative that brings together experts from engineering, medicine, health policy and information sciences to address this critical need."

The center provides a venue for like-minded health care systems innovators and provides the basis for a new discipline in health care-solving systems issues. The center will serve as a teaching and learning environment for University faculty and students, as well as a bridge between industry participants, tying together many of Penn State's strengths with the potential to transform health care delivery.

"Although there have been many attempts to improve the way health care is delivered, many of the industry's roadblocks have already been addressed by well-established systems principles," said Harriet Black Nembhard, associate professor and Bashore Career Professor in industrial engineering and center director. "Our job will be to tailor and apply these principles in a way that will improve health care."

Nembhard chaired the center's steering committee, which includes Diane Brannon, professor of health policy and administration; Christopher DeFlitch, staff physician at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center; Janetta DeOnna, assistant director of the Office of Workforce and Economic Development; Deborah Medeiros, associate professor of industrial engineering; and Madhu Reddy, assistant professor of information sciences and technology.

The CIHDS will be administered through the College of Engineering and aligned strategically with the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), which is directed by Larry Sinoway, professor of medicine in the College of Medicine.

He explained that "the overaching goal of the CTSI is to elevate the health science research and education enterprise at our University to better enable it to deliver on the promise of improved health. The Center for Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems will be a key part of making this happen."