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From July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020, Regenstrief Institute is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Regenstrief Institute was founded in 1969 by philanthropist and businessman Sam Regenstrief and his wife Myrtie. An efficiency expert, Sam perfected the performance and manufacturing of the home dishwasher and owned a very successful manufacturing business. He built his business into one of the largest suppliers of automatic dishwashers in the nation.

After experiencing the inefficiency and inequity of healthcare, Sam and Myrtie sought to improve the quality for everyone. They established the Regenstrief Institute, a living laboratory to explore solutions to healthcare’s toughest problems. The institute is affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine and works closely with many community partners.

Since the institute’s founding, Regenstrief researchers have conducted pioneering work in the areas of informatics, aging, health services and implementation science. They work to produce applicable, scalable solutions to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare.

Regenstrief scientists built one of the first (and some claim, the first) electronic medical records system and launched one of the first computerized physician order entry systems in the United States. The institute is home to LOINC® (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes), a universal standard for coding health measurements, observations and documents that is used all over the world.

Research at the institute has led to improvements in stroke care, awareness of the link between certain medications and brain health, applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare, strategies to enhance provider-patient communication, a system to enhance care for people in nursing homes, among many other accomplishments. Scientists continue to work on a wide variety of projects in the areas of global health, precision health, symptom management, brain health, decision support and more.

The generosity of Sam and Myrtie Regenstrief has fueled innovations for half a century, and their mission of efficiency, effectiveness and equity in healthcare guides today’s research as the institute strives to connect and innovate for better health and to end disease locally, nationally and globally.