Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), is the nation's #1-ranked provider of comprehensive physical medicine and rehabilitation care to patients from around the world and is the leader in research and development of the cutting-edge treatments and technologies in its field.

The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is not just a new research hospital, it’s a new kind of research hospital, one that is revolutionizing the future of rehabilitation and creating a new category of medicine.We invested $550 million in this state-of-the-art research hospital.

It is designed explicitly for the practice of “translational medicine” — a model for medical care in which research is applied directly (translated) during patient care. It is the world’s first and only center of its kind on the planet.

Research will not just co-exist with patient care, it will be integrated full time, 24/7, into the clinical environment. Our five ability labs, where researchers and clinicians work side-by-side are organized
by functional outcome (e.g., legs + walking; arms + hands, etc.), rather than by diagnosis (e.g., brain injury, stroke, etc.). Designed to advance clinical care — there are no boundaries in our ability labs.