March 23, 2023 – Illionois State University and OSF HealthCare have formed a partnership to foster research, innovation, and economic development across the state of Illinois. The Connected Communities Initiative (CCI) program will bring together clinicians, university faculty researchers, and students to focus on innovation in clinical and patient education, health care engineering, data science, and cybersecurity.
The program is a formalization of the partnership between these two anchor institutions in Bloomington-Normal and the broader OSF HealthCare system. Illinois State and OSF HealthCare are lead hub members of the Illinois Innovation Network (IIN).
The collaborative work in the Connected Communities Initiative has the potential to generate intellectual property that the two institutions can share and advance the IIN mission of driving inclusive and integrated research, innovation, and economic development across the state.
The agreement also provides a financial foundation for the work with both organizations providing $500,000 each, to contribute a total of $1 million annually for research and development of strategic solutions to improve health care delivery, and patient and provider experience.
The partnership will initially build on Illinois State’s expertise in education, health, cybersecurity, biomedical science, visualization, and process improvement. There will be opportunities for Illinois State’s academic colleges to collaborate on projects with OSF Healthcare. The broad range of faculty expertise and the engagement from the student body will lead to exciting new solutions to complex problems facing society.
OSF Healthcare and Illinois State University have a tradition of collaboration on research, including a recent project to improve low childhood vaccination rates.
Joint projects can include testing solutions in clinical spaces, such as OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center and medical offices. The efforts will take place both virtually and in-person in a variety of settings including ISU labs and computer centers, along with Jump Simulation & Education Center in Peoria, a world-class building with labs focused on advanced imaging and modeling, blockchain, children’s innovation, genomics and precision medicine, interprofessional education, neuro health, and STEAM.
The CCI is built upon successful models that OSF Healthcare has developed and maintains with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois-Chicago, and Bradley University.