By using the scientific method, research is the best tool we know to better understand our world. The ION uses research, via clinical and basic science studies, to explicate complex relationships in medicine with the goal of improving patient outcomes. Through our collaborative network, we are able to amass large patient numbers, allowing us to explore research topics impractical for a single center. 

Because research's rate limiting step is the collection of high-quality data, we are encouraging our collaborating institutions to leverage the mountains of clinical data residing in their electronic health record systems for research. Through innovative solutions borrowed from the field of computer science and machine learning, we are approaching an era were we can quickly collate data from multiple sources for our clinical investigations. Therefore, not only is our research helping to progress medicine, research done in allied sciences is as well.