Ongoing Research Projects
Developing Novel Clinical Tools for Integrating Surgery Patient Outcome Data with Basic and Translational Research
Two million patients per year are evaluated and treated in the UPenn health system, consistently one of the patient’s top 10 hospitals. Clinical care, if carefully observed and analyzed, can be leveraged in order to enhance individual patient care and population quality-of-life. A mechanism for comprehensive, low cost, patient level data collection is needed. Embedding data acquisition into normal workflow provides the opportunity to accomplish such a goal. In this arm of our lab research we have constructed, integrated, and tested a sustainable, IRB approved, clinical information acquisition system (objective and patient reported) within the electronic medical record (EMR). The Neurosurgery Quality improvement initiative EpiLog tool collects critical patient data and outcomes information. Beta testing has demonstrated success in supporting precision medicine, QI, clinical and translational research and the ability to generate data pools for clinical research queries. In ongoing work we are integrating this novel clinical tool with our IRB approved surgical tissue collection banks for intervertebral disc tissue and stem cells. This will enable us to directly and uniquely couple basic research findings to the clinical presentation, symptoms and treatment outcomes of patients. In an adjacent project, by coupling Clinical information and patient reported outcome measures we are studying the impact various surgical results, and patient’s satisfaction, on overall outcome and return to functional status for a broad array of neurosurgical disorders.
Updated on 05 Dec 2016