AIRE Reaches Out for Medical Research

Medical research is expanding in Northwest Arkansas with the formation of the Arkansas Institute for Research & Education.

AIRE will need a budget of about $400,000 each year for the first several years of operation. About 60 percent of that will come from agreements with other research entities.

The new research organization will take on what the Regional Research Center at Washington Regional Medical Center has been doing since 1994 but make it independent and expand it to include all health care facilities in the area, said Anne Courtney-Eighmy. Courtney-Eighmy is the former director of the Regional Research Center and the new executive director of the AIRE.

AIRE does a lot of “outcomes research,” which involves tracking health care procedures to see if they are making patients’ lives better and whether the benefits are worth the cost, Courtney-Eighmy said.

“It works better as an institution than as a department,” said Ted Fish, AIRE clinical director and a cardiologist with Northwest Arkansas Heart & Vascular Clinic.

AIRE concentrates on four main areas:

n Cutting-edge clinical research trials.

n Emergency medical system studies on care of patients during transport to a health care facility.

n Primary care research on cardiovascular disease and family practice health care.

n Community health issues, particularly disease prevention.

“This is going to allow us more flexibility. It gives us a greater opportunity to look at other research projects and do more with national organizations,” Fish said.

Courtney-Eighmy said AIRE will look for corporate partners to invest in the rest of its funding.

She said AIRE, for instance, can do statistical research for large companies to determine if specific disease management programs might benefit the company’s employees, so the companies get a nice return on their investment.

A number of area doctors are involved in research with AIRE. They include: Joel Carver, David Churchill, James Cooper and Jamon Pruitt, of Northwest Arkansas Heart & Vascular Clinic; Peter Ball and Mark Thomas of AHEC-Northwest; Travis Embry of Countryside Clinic in Huntsville; and Sean Mulvenon and Ro DiBrezzo of the University of Arkansas.