Women’s Final Four crowds smallest since 1990s
Tuesday night's NCAA women's basketball championship game at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis was a near-sellout, but it was the smallest crowd to see the title game since 1997.
Tuesday night's NCAA women's basketball championship game at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis was a near-sellout, but it was the smallest crowd to see the title game since 1997.
Visionary Enterprises Inc., a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based Community Health Network, appointed Dr. Larry Monn as chief operating officer. VEI oversees Community’s joint ventures with physicians. Monn, who has been VEI’s chief medical officer since 2007, fills the position left vacant by Kyle Fisher, who was promoted to CEO of VEI. Monn, a plastic surgeon, earned his medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Alliance Home Health Care hired Dr. Charles F. Hasbrook as its medical adviser. Hasbrook currently serves as the medical care provider at Larue Carter Hospital Primary Care Clinic. He earned his medical degree from IU School of Medicine.
The IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center has added six research fellows: Dr. Helmut Hanenberg focuses on DNA repair disorders in children; Susan Hickman is developing a research program focused on decision-making in patients with advanced cancer; Yan Liu investigates how stem cells in the blood remain dormant and renew themselves; Brenna McDonald studies leukemia, breast cancer, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury on patients' brains; Kevin Rand studies hope, optimism and life goals among cancer patients, and how they relate to treatment decisions and well-being; and Nathan Stupiansky explores cancer prevention and cancer vaccines, such as the HPV vaccine.
Rick Holigrocki, a clinical psychologist, has been named dean of the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Indianapolis. He has been serving as acting dean since August. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Windsor.
In the not-too-distant future, scientists tell us, we will regard the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy agents as akin to the bleeding therapy administered by 19th century country doctors. And a Purdue University chemist has developed a tool to help make the future of laser-guided cancer therapies a reality. W. Andy Tao has developed a nanopolymer that can be coated with drugs, enter cells and then be removed to determine which proteins in the cells the drug has entered. Knowing which proteins are targeted would allow drug developers to test whether new drugs target only desired proteins or others as well. Eliminating unintended protein targets could reduce the often-serious side effects associated with cancer drugs. Tao said there currently is no reliable way to test drugs for “off-targeting.”
Indianapolis-based Medical Animatics, a 3D animation company, is making a foray into the game business. The company will develop a game for kids ages 6-12 to help them learn safe behaviors at home, in their neighborhoods, at school or at a park. Medical Animatics will develop the game for Ohio-based Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Health games designed to be both educational and enjoyable are being developed by two other companies with Indiana ties—Bloomington-based Wisdom Tools LLC and Indianapolis-based Gabriel Entertainment, as well as by growing numbers of developers around the country. Medical Animatics also develops 3D animated instructional and informational materials for the health care, higher education and sports industries.
Northern Indiana's Manchester College plans to begin work this summer on its new $18 million pharmacy school. School spokeswoman Jeri Kornegay said Thursday that a ground-breaking for the 75,000-square-foot building in Fort Wayne is expected early this summer, possibly in June. Until the building is complete in July 2012, the college's School of Pharmacy will continue to occupy space at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, about 30 miles east of North Manchester. The project is supported by a $35 million grant from Lilly Endowment that's the largest gift in the college's history. While pharmacy schools have opened on a rapid pace around the nation in recent years, Indiana is one of 18 states with a shortage of pharmacists. Manchester’s will be the third in Indiana offering doctorates in pharmacy, joining schools at Butler University in Indianapolis and Purdue University in West Lafayette.
Mishawaka-based Franciscan Alliance plans to spend $8.4 million to open an administrative center in Greenwood, creating nearly 85 jobs in the next four years. The Catholic health care system, formerly known as Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, will buy, remodel and equip the 96,505-square-foot freestanding building at 1040 Sierra Drive. The administrative center—dubbed the Franciscan Ambulatory Business Office—will house all physician billing operations for the organization’s 13 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois. Franciscan Alliance employs 18,200, including 556 physicians, and expects to grow its physician team to more than 630 next year. Hiring at the administrative center should begin in April as renovations are made. Franciscan Alliance is the second hospital system to announce plans recently to consolidate operations in central Indiana. In October, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, the parent organization of St. Vincent Health, decided to locate a $10.9 million professional service center in Indianapolis, creating up to 500 jobs by 2013.
U.S. News & World Report ranked the best hospitals in the Indianapolis area based on the ones that have medical specialty groups of either national prominence or high performance on such metrics as survival, safety, staffing, technology and patient volumes. Topping the list was the downtown medical complex of Clarian Health, now called Indiana University Health. The academic medical center—which includes Methodist, IU and Riley hospitals—ranked nationally in 11 areas, including gastroenterology, urology, geriatrics, orthopedics, neurosurgery and cancer. It also scored as high-performing in gynecology. Coming in second in the ranking was St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, which scored as high-performing in 12 specialties. Other hospitals in the local top five were IU Health North Hospital, St. Vincent Carmel Hospital and, in a tie for fifth place, St. Vincent Heart Center and Wishard Health Services.
City grants approval Tuesday morning for the reuse of Meridian Street building that WFYI vacated in May 2008.
Despite having an in-state basketball team in the women’s NCAA Final Four and only 18,500 seats to fill, attendance at Conseco Fieldhouse was sparse Sunday for the semifinal round, with a total of 16,421 attending the two-game session.
What did you see, hear or do on the arts and entertainment front this weekend … besides watch basketball?
Across the U.S., the most popular women’s college sport is in the red. Women’s basketball at the 53 public schools in the six largest conferences recorded operating losses last fiscal year of $109.7 million, while the men’s teams reported operating profits of $240 million.
A capital campaign is under way to fund improvements to the historic arena on the campus of Butler University. Upgrades will include more seating for season-ticket holders and a new scoreboard with video capabilities.
Northern Indiana's Manchester College plans to begin work this summer on the college's new $18 million pharmacy school.
There is little agreement—but lots of politics and complex statistics—on how to define success and failure in Indiana’s public schools.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis received a $1 million grant from the Eli Lilly and Co. Foundation to support expeditions by an Indiana University team to Captain Kidd’s ship in the Dominican Republic.
Six gas-distribution companies have urged regulators to reject a state plan that would force residential natural-gas customers to effectively subsidize a $2.7 billion coal gasification project proposed for Rockport.
Allison Transmission is not a household name like Google or General Motors, but it won’t lack an audience for its planned $750 million initial public offering.
First in a month-long series of reviews of restaurants that sound wet—just like spring in Indiana.
Everyone, it seems, wants government to cost less—until someone suggests cuts to our particular sacred cows.
In this installment of IBJ's Who's Who series, meet key members of the city’s banking and finance sector. They include bankers, fund managers, venture capitalists, lawyers, financial planners and others who influence the movement and availability of money in the local economy.
Republicans in the Indiana House on Wednesday pushed through three labor-related bills that had drawn protests from Democrats during their five-week legislative walkout.
This month’s First Friday events include the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art’s opening of “Inner City Inspiration: An Artist’s Evolution in Clay” (April 1-May 14), featuring work by IU Associate Professor of Ceramic Art Malcolm Mobutu Smith, including a large-scale graffiti mural. Details here.
“Annie Get Your Gun” fires up at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, March 31-May 8. Details here.
“American Idol” contender Kellie Pickler headlines a free concert as part of the NCAA Women’s Final Four Tourney Town at the Indiana Convention Center April 2. Details here.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art screens “Selections from Project 35,” a trio of videos selected by a team of international curators, April 1-Oct. 30. Details here.
Pianist Jeremy Denk joins the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for a weekend of Sibelius, Ravel and Mozart, April 1-2. Details here.
Comic Adam Carolla performs at the Egyptian Room at Old National Centre, April 1. Details here.
Old 97s return to the Vogue April 3. Details here.
The St. Petersburg Symphony comes to the Palladium April 3. Details here.
Dennis DeYoung brings the music of Styx to a concert with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra March 31. Details here.
Indiana University Health has canceled plans for a $73 million administrative office building at 16th Street and Capitol Avenue to instead purchase the Gateway Plaza tower at 10th and Illinois streets. The Indianapolis-based hospital system is still moving forward with construction of a $120 million neurosciences hub across the street from its Methodist Hospital campus. But IU Health officials, without being specific, said the price was too good on Gateway Plaza—where the hospital system already rents 130,000 square feet and employs 750 workers. The building currently has 80 percent of its 270,000 rentable square feet leased. But the looming departures of IU Health as well as the IU Foundation—which recently bought its own building along the Central Canal—could have quickly reduced occupancy to 20 percent. IU Health also bought the 1,200-space parking lots adjacent to the building.
Six Indiana hospitals were named to Thomson Reuters' annual list of the nation’s top 100 health care facilities. They included St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, the flagship hospital of Indianapolis-based St. Vincent Health. Also making the list were Columbus Regional Hospital, Community Hospital in Munster, Kosciusko Community Hospital in Warsaw, Memorial Hospital & Health System in South Bend, and Reid Hospital & Health Care Services in Richmond. The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals study evaluates performance in 10 areas: deaths; medical complications; patient safety; average patient stay; expenses; profitability; patient satisfaction; adherence to clinical standards of care; post-discharge deaths; and re-admission rates for patients suffering a heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. The study has been conducted annually since 1993.
Purdue University ranked No. 47 on a list of the institutions worldwide with the most articles published last year in the widely cited Nature research journals. U.S. institutions occupied 33 of the top 50 positions, with Harvard University topping the list. The index is available here. The Nature journals primarily publish articles disclosing basic research findings in life, physical and chemical sciences. The journals focus less on applied scientific or engineering research. The index is a collaboration between Nature Publishing group and Digital Sciences, a sister division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.