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    The Role of Research in Providing High-Quality Patient Care

    The Role of Research in Providing High-Quality Patient Care

    2017-IHReserach-Summit

    Dr. Srivastava shared his plans to better align Intermountain resources and investigators across the care delivery system, in order to better serve our patients and community. The goal of research at Intermountain is to conduct research that has a rapid impact on improving patient care, focused on achieving the best medical result at the lowest necessary cost.

    The Summit was organized into five main topics:

    1. Overview of the 5-year strategic plan for Research in support of Intermountain’s mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible®
    2. Intermountain Healthcare’s commitment to providing the best clinical care
    3. Advancing education at Intermountain Healthcare
    4. Building the research infrastructure
    5. Utilizing Intermountain’s internal quality improvement (QI) training to improve the services provided to researchers, study participants, and patients

    Presenters included:

    Dr. Marc Harrison, CEO, discussed the role of research in Intermountain’s overall vision to be a model health system by providing extraordinary care and superior service at an affordable cost. “We want care to be extraordinary and accessible,” Says Dr. Harrison.

    Greg Johnson, MBA, Intermountain’s VP of Finance, spoke about the financial landscape in 2016 and how the organization is preparing for 2017.

    Dr. Raj Srivastava, AVP of Research shared his 5-year plan to create a Research Center, aligning researchers and resources with Intermountain’s overall strategic direction. “Research at Intermountain will focus as one program on the five fundamentals of extraordinary care – safety, quality, patient experience, access, and stewardship.” The plan also includes building upon our current collaborations with other institutions like the University of Utah, where we benefit from participating in their VPCAT mentorship program for junior investigators, and partner on many research studies involving pediatric patients; and with Stanford University, where we are currently fostering investigator partnerships through a funded collaborative research program.

    Much of the afternoon was spent highlighting current studies at Intermountain related to trauma care, cancer immunotherapy and early feasibility trials for new ways to repair valves in cardiovascular patients. The hallways around the Doty Education Center were filled with scientific posters representing important research conducted by Intermountain investigators over the past year. There were also presentations on improvements made to research resources in place to support investigators across Intermountain Healthcare.

    Researchers and subjects presented included:

    Scott C. Woller, MD — Venous Thromboembolism Reduction Initiative: Joint Efforts to Prevent Hospital-Associated VTE

    Terence D. Rhodes, MD – Cancer Immunotherapy Program

    Brian K. Whisenant, MD – Early Feasibility Trials for Transcatheter Valve Therapies at Intermountain Medical Center​​

    Sarah D. Majercik, MD, MBA – Venous Thromboembolism Screening in the Trauma Population, A Randomized Vanguard Trial

    Patrick D. Carroll, MD – Umbilical Cord Blood, no Longer Waste

    Eddie A. Stenehjem, MD, MSc – Antibiotic Stewardship in Community Hospitals

    M. Sean Esplin MD – Providing Higher Quality Care and the Role of Research.

    Andrew J Knighton, PhD, CPA – Social determinants, Health and Healthcare Outcomes

    Intermountain currently has over 1,500 active research studies in over 20 clinical areas. The core of Intermountain research takes place within our 10 clinical programs: Behavioral Health, Cardiovascular, Intensive Medicine, Musculoskeletal, Neurosciences, Oncology, Pediatrics, Primary Care, Surgical Services, and Women & Newborns.

    To find out more about Intermountain Healthcare Research and the advancement of medical knowledge in many clinical areas visit intermountainresearch.org