Finding ways to improve the health of individuals and communities drives a variety of outcomes research initiatives at NorthShore. From the effect of therapies to the actual processes of the health care system itself, outcomes studies help to enhance medical practice, determine effective and cost-efficient health policies and, most importantly, improve quality of patient care.
NorthShore investigators conduct outcomes research across multiple disciplines. Our robust electronic data resources coupled with leading-edge scientific expertise allows for powerful analytics to support a number of innovative investigator-initiated studies.
Our outcomes research efforts are broad in scope, addressing the health and wellness of people and populations across a wide range of ages, races/ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. In the area of maternal and child health, for example, NorthShore was one of five sites of the National Institutes of Health-funded Community Child Health Research Network (CCHN). A large community-based participatory research network in perinatal medicine, the CCHN examined how community-, family- and individual-level stressors may influence physiological dysregulation in women of childbearing age that predispose their children to poor health due to overweight, asthma, hypertension or Type 2 diabetes. Although the CCHN is no longer enrolling participants, NorthShore investigators and others continue to follow the families’ health, and expand and publish on novel findings, looking particularly for the influences of stress on mothers, fathers and two children (now preschool or elementary school-aged) in each family. Additional studies focus on investigating determinants of adverse pregnancy outcomes in vulnerable populations of women. In addition, NorthShore continues a partnership with other research institutions, physicians and patients through the Chicago Area Clinical Research Data Network (CAPriCorn), a research network funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Other innovative outcomes research includes:
- Text messaging to improve diabetes self-management and outcomes related to painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy
- Identifying patterns of asthma care via electronic medical records to predict, and ultimately prevent, asthma exacerbations
- Interviewing and surveying primary care physicians (PCPs) and cardiologists to better understand their use of emerging therapies for atrial fibrillation