The primary mission of the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) is to facilitate and provide oversight for the academic activities of our integrated healthcare system. Our central focus is to effectively train medical students, residents, and fellows as well as other allied health professionals. This is essential to the health and well-being of our patients and helps to ensure that high-quality healthcare providers will be available for generations to come.
Our mission is consistent with our organization’s overarching goal of preserving and improving human life. The OAA is responsible for developing and nurturing our primary academic affiliation with the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. The OAA also supports biomedical research at NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) and encourages the faculty to participate in these activities because education and scientific inquiry are inextricably linked. The OAA is mandated to foster educational innovation in the domain of clinical training consistent with NorthShore’s pursuit of excellence in all endeavors.
NorthShore has a well-established tradition of medical student and resident teaching dating back to 1930. Core rotations for the NorthShore residency programs are at Evanston and Glenbrook Hospitals. These teaching hospitals offer the latest treatments, which have been evaluated for effectiveness in research studies lead by clinicians and research scientists. Residents train in an attractive suburban setting with supportive mentors while enjoying quality learning experience.
A Tradition of Research
Research is at the core of NorthShore's success as an academic medical institution, providing both improvements in patient care and a stimulating environment for physicians. Since the 1920s with Dr. Louis W. Sauer's development of the whooping cough vaccine at Evanston Hospital, a strong linkage has existed between research and patient care. That same spirit of innovation exists today as NorthShore takes its place among the nation's premier independent research hospitals, attracting the best and brightest physician-scientists--many of whom have been awarded significant NIH grants. The collaboration between basic scientists and physicians has created an ideal model for advancing medical research and bringing new therapies to patients who need them most.
The Medical Informatics System
NorthShore is now one of the most “wired” healthcare organizations in the United States, thanks to the system-wide implementation of an award-winning suite of medical informatics tools. The system integrates functions from across the organization, including: scheduling; registration; inpatient and ambulatory Electronic Medical Records; physician orders; pharmacy orders and billing. The system eliminates the need for a paper-based patient chart, handwritten drug prescriptions and much of the copying and rewriting of the same information that occurs with paper-based charting systems.
Many of the benefits are driven by the system’s Electronic Medical Record -- a secure, centralized body of information about each patient, portions of which are accessed and updated directly by care providers. The system drastically reduces re-work and irregularities in everything from coding to prescription orders.