CHSI Care Delivery team focuses on primary care solutions.

We create solutions to transform patient care with an intensive focus on rural primary care and communities. We design, test and implement solutions to clearly defined problems in rural primary care clinics and hospital settings.

Rural healthcare providers face patients with more chronic diseases than other populations of same age.

CHSI engages with physicians and health care professionals who both inform and help conduct research, development and implementation of solutions to increase access to care, expand primary care capacity and improve health clinic efficiency.

Current rural care delivery innovation efforts include but are not limited to:

• clinic efficiency
• patient transportation
• prescription efficiency
• connectivity
• mental health education and access
• remote physician education
• atrial fibrillation
• diabetes
• tobacco use
• telehealth

If you are a primary care provider interested in joining the OSU Rural Practice Based Research Network, please register here.

CHSI leads multiple efforts to ensure OSU Center for Health Sciences students gain experience and receive training in health innovation. In addition to employing Center for Health Sciences and Spears School of Business students on cross disciplinary teams through associate positions and graduate assistantships, CHSI offers students the opportunity to participate in innovation events and design seminars. In the fall of 2016, please look for a new student club based at Center for Health Sciences: Health Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Club (HITEC).

The Institute for Predictive Medicine (IPM) is focused on Health Analytics and Predictive Medicine. The team manages and analyzes Cerner Health Facts®, one of the largest HIPAA-compliant relational databases, to better understand the practice of medicine, leverage the wealth of patient data for improved outcomes and build predictive health models. The mission of IPM is to transform health data into actionable insights. In support of its core mission, IPM pursues a number of different initiatives falling within three major focus areas.

We develop algorithms to improve decision-making processes and clinical outcomes.

We strongly believe that predictive medicine is the future. Predictive medicine will enable the next level of patient care by allowing diseases to be predicted even before they occur, thereby supporting efforts at early treatment or prevention. With large, detailed healthcare datasets such as the Cerner Health Facts^® database, we have access to the comprehensive treatment history and detailed lab records of millions of patients, which allow us to mine the data for risk indicators and develop algorithms to support improved health initiatives, thereby accelerating the development of new innovative solutions that ultimately bring the future of healthcare closer.

To support our efforts in this area, we pursue a mix of different projects spanning the areas of clinical decision algorithms, predictive analytics, drug outcomes analysis, payer economics, laboratory test modeling and workflow efficiency improvements. For projects in each of these areas, we are also working on creating standards and documenting best practices that will guide future endeavors on similar projects. Furthermore, we are also actively developing analytical tools, templates and solutions that can be used and implemented by both healthcare researchers and practitioners.

We help train and prepare the next generation of health data scientists.

The passage of acts such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITEC) have driven the widespread adoption of electronic health systems by organizations providing healthcare, which in turn has resulted in an explosion of health data. Additionally, the focus on meaningful use has also led to efforts to transform healthcare, at the core of which are data-driven quality initiatives.

Given the rapid pace of technological evolution and changing industry needs, we believe in the importance of training the next generation of health data scientists. That is, we believe in engaging with students early in order to imbue them with the awareness and interest to consider pursuing careers in health data analytics, providing training to help individuals develop skills in data analytics and even creating opportunities for those seeking to transition into health analytics from other career paths.

For this purpose, we have developed a series of initiatives that form an integrated analytics training engine. From secondary STEM education to undergraduate to graduate to corporate fellowships and beyond, we offer training modules, support for student clubs, internships, assistantships and a multitude of different opportunities for students at all levels of education and from all disciplines and backgrounds to obtain exposure to healthcare analytics. For more information, interested students, parents and educators can check out our educational support pages.

We partner and collaborate with researchers and organizations to develop and implement solutions together.

Healthcare is complex. The development of innovative healthcare solutions is a multidisciplinary effort that requires contributions by individuals from many different areas of expertise and disciplines. Consequently, we strongly believe in partnering and collaborating with researchers and organizations alike to develop and implement solutions together. Partnerships and collaborations allow both sides to bring together the resources, skills and knowledge that can greatly deepen and accelerate the pace of innovation.

With the Cerner Health Facts^® dataset, we also have access to a massive repository of healthcare data. Recognizing that the depth and breadth of problems in healthcare that can be addressed far exceed the capacity of a single team, we additionally believe in providing data access and analytics expertise to support efforts by other research teams and groups who are interested in innovating healthcare and improving clinical care outcomes.

To increase the diversity of our data and paint a more complete picture of healthcare, we also partner with government organizations, academic institutions and corporations. Some of the data we’ve analyzed include, but are not limited to, Oklahoma health data, national consumer health data, social media data and other publicly available health-related datasets.

To submit requests for partnerships or collaborations, check out our meet the team page.

OSU Institutional Review Board Study Links:

• Atrial Fibrillation Study
• Improving Rural Health Care Clinic Efficiency: Identifying Common Rural Clinic Workflow Disruptions 

Cerner Health Facts^® is an invaluable resource in data analytics and predictive medicine.

The Cerner Health Facts^® database is a real-world, de-identified, HIPAA-compliant electronic health records (EHR) database. It was donated to CHSI by Cerner, a global provider of healthcare information technology.

The database is a by-product of care delivered at participating Cerner client hospitals and clinics, and consists of a subset of those hospitals and clinics who have agreed to contribute their data for research purposes. All identifying patient information has been removed from the database to facilitate research on the data.

Unlike claims data, which covers primarily billing data, the Cerner Health Facts^® database is a comprehensive dataset. In addition to the diagnosis and procedure codes that are typically available in claims data, Health Facts^® also includes encounter-level admission and discharge information, patient demographics, hospital attributes, medication dosage and administration information, lab test orders and results, and surgical case information with detailed timestamps. Patients are also assigned a unique ID, so it is possible to follow patients through episodes of care provided at any Cerner-affiliated hospital or system, or conduct longitudinal analysis on a group of a patients.

Health Facts^® at a Glance

• Geography: Entire U.S. (identifiable down to census division)

• Timeline: 2000 – current

• Patients: 63 million

• Encounters: 380 million

• Hospitals: 600+

• Diagnoses: 480 million

• Procedures: 45 million

• Lab tests/procedures: 4 billion

• Clinical events: 3 billion

• Surgical cases: 4 million

Read about Health Facts^® and get some stats from a published article here.

Get Access to Health Facts^®

Given the wealth of data contained within the Cerner Health Facts^® database, the areas where this data can provide insight into improving healthcare is boundless. We at CHSI strongly believe that, if harnessed correctly, such a dataset could have the potential to drive innovation in many different areas of healthcare.

Consequently, we are interested in providing data to support joint projects or efforts by researchers and innovators who are working on innovative healthcare solutions. To learn more about how to start a request for data, check out our request data page.  

The Rural Oklahoma Network (ROK-Net) is a synergistic effort of the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (CHS), including its Department of Family Medicine and Center for Rural Health, and the OSU Spears School of Business’ Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI).  It will be headquartered at the OSU CHS campus in Tulsa. Although nearly 175 similar networks exist across the country, ROK-Net is one of a handful devoted exclusively to rural health.

ROK-Net provides an infrastructure for the development of peer learning networks comprised of rural clinicians and providers, OSU researchers and innovators and community partners. These networks study recurring problems in rural primary care and develop resources and quality improvement initiatives in response to findings.  Providers play an instrumental role in shaping research and development efforts to ensure relevance and application to daily practice.

ROK-Net core values:

• Strong relationships among participants

• Leadership by rural healthcare providers

Vision: Disparities in health status between rural and non-rural populations no longer exist in Oklahoma. 

Mission: Create an alliance of rural primary care providers to identify and implement solutions to address rural Oklahoma health challenges.

Goal: Expedite efforts to discover, develop and implement insights and resources vital to effective care in rural Oklahoma.

Objectives:

• Increase resources available to rural practices

• Help rural practitioners operate as efficiently as possible

• Improve access to care in rural communities

• Encourage clinicians to practice in rural areas

Benefits of joining

• Involvement with a group of rural peers to share challenges and best practices

   

• Opportunities to collaborate with and lend expertise to health innovation researchers

   

• Connections with quality improvement specialists to accelerate insights into practice

   

• Invitations to attend ROK-Net meetings

   

• Access to ROK-Net resources identified and developed through membership feedback

   

• Close relationship with the OSU CHSI.

Interested in joining ROK-Net?

ROK-Net has high aspirations for advancing rural health delivery and decreasing rural health disparities. Its first initiative is to identify resources that will be most impactful to current rural primary care practice. 

REGISTER