Description
The Innovation for Health Partnership (IFH) is designed to create a robust, collaborative research community among employees at two of Peoria’s largest and most impactful nonprofit institutions: Bradley University and OSF HealthCare. This Request for Proposals (RFP) calls for connecting faculty scholars from Bradley’s five colleges to work with OSF’s clinical researchers and healthcare providers to address medical and healthcare challenges within and beyond Greater Peoria through innovative, interdisciplinary solutions.

The primary themes for IFH

• Social determinants of health

• Health literacy

• Precision medicine and cancer-related research

These themes intersect with the partnership’s current areas of interest: nursing and health practitioner clinical training, translational research to improve regional community health, rural health, medical visualization, and data security.

Goals
The IFH partnership aims to generate meaningful, applicable knowledge that can be translated from scholarly discoveries, studies, and insights into practice. Bradley University and OSF HealthCare will work together to advance local and regional community health outcomes. This relationship will leverage OSF’s clinical expertise and the diverse scholarly backgrounds of Bradley’s faculty. The partnership  seeks to advance medical education and simulation, prevention, treatment, the quality of patient care, and the reduction of healthcare costs. Given Bradley’s strong commitment to experiential learning, the partnership will allow faculty to engage their talented students in impactful applied interdisciplinary research. To achieve this goal and promote collaboration between OSF HealthCare and Bradley University, we encourage applicants to inquire about facilities or technologies that they cannot access at their home institution applicable to their project. Examples of facilities and technologies may include simulation areas, robotics technology, 3D printing, or other prototyping and manufacturing needs. View these facilities on Peoria NEXT Innovation Center and the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center Peoria websites to learn more.  
Hands-on learning opportunities associated with solutions-based research will aid Bradley University’s student recruitment efforts and encourage its graduates to remain in the Greater Peoria area and Central Illinois to serve in the growing healthcare field, including at OSF HealthCare. The visibility of the research will also aid in the recruitment and retention of Bradley faculty and OSF HealthCare mission partners.