IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science COO honored

INDIANAPOLIS —  Nadia Nguyen Adams, MHA, is on a mission to facilitate the compression of the 17-year timeline it typically takes for a medical discovery to move from the laboratory to the real world, where it can impact patient care. To accomplish this mission she is helping partner innovative researchers with healthcare systems, matchmaking evidence-based knowledge with healthcare delivery needs.

In recognition of these efforts, Adams, chief operating officer of Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and network director of the Great Lakes Practice Transformation Network, has been recognized as a 2016 Woman of Influence by the Indianapolis Business Journal.

The IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science employs the tools of implementation science in support of the goals of safely and effectively translating innovative discoveries into new therapies. The center’s mission is to produce high-quality, patient-centered and cost-efficient health care delivery solutions for health care systems of any size, anywhere.

The Great Lakes Network, a major project of the center, seeks to improve health outcomes for at least ten million patients, reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and generate at least $1 billion in cost savings to payers. The practice network’s initial mission has grown in little over a year from supporting better care, lower cost and improved outcomes for individuals in three states to include residents of five states with the addition of Ohio and Kentucky to Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.

Over the next three years the network is expected to receive up to $46.4 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to help equip 15,500 clinicians with the tools, information, and support needed to improve quality of care, increase patients’ access to information, and spend health care dollars more wisely.

“Perhaps Nadia’s greatest leadership accomplishment both as CHIIS COO and Great Lakes network director is her ability to foster successful collaboration among traditionally disparate stakeholders — clinicians and hospital administrators,” said Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, founding director of the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and Great Lakes Practice Transformation Network. “Her ability to bring the two groups together is key to quality improvement that patients need and deserve.”

Adams, a native of Fort Wayne, is a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington and received a master of health administration degree from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.  She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Indiana Healthcare Executives Network. A long-time activist for the disabled, she was recently invited to join the board of directors of Indianapolis’ Easter Seals ARC.

Adams joined the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science, which is part of the IU School of Medicine and of the Indiana Clinical Translational Sciences Institute, at the center’s inception in 2013 as executive director and became chief operating officer in 2015.

“My passion is to eliminate preventable — the word preventable means it can be changed –medical errors as well as to foster fruitful collaborations between all those who care about patients,” said Adams. “I am honored to receive this award and it’s recognition that striving to improve health care matters.”