Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Integrating research with clinical care is of critical importance, and long overdue. Currently, 86% of scientific discoveries never make it out of the lab. That’s countless approaches, treatments and even potential cures that could speed recovery or save lives, but are never fully or effectively developed. The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (renamed from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in 2017) is integrating science with intention to close this gap and has been explicitly designed to enable translation of research into care faster. The $550 million, 1.2-million-square-foot Shirley Ryan is the first-ever “translational” research hospital in which clinicians, scientists, innovators and technologists work together in the same space, 24/7, surrounding patients, discovering new approaches and applying (or “translating”) research real time. The goal: better, faster outcomes for patients.