MU Surgical Center for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness

MUSCORE is a multidisciplinary research center established by the Department of Surgery for Health Services Research (HSR). It was developed to encourage and support the use of HSR to improve the quality of surgical care at local, regional and national levels. At MUSCORE, team members work closely with clinical research directors to ensure high quality data review and project progression, offering assistance on:

• Project selection
• IRB application submission
• Clinical trial startup (including contract and budget)
• Execution of study protocol
• Informed consent
• Research patient visits and follow ups
• Data collection
• Data analysis

Current Areas of Outcomes Research

• Outcomes/Comparative Effectiveness Research
  • Surgical procedures
• Quality of care improvement programs
  • Evaluation of the emergency severity score (ESS) as a marker for survival
• Hospital-specific data and Best practices  
  • Opioid utilization
• Implementation research
  • Readmission evaluation and process improvement

Active Groups

• Bariatric Surgery

  • Andrew Wheeler, MD

• Surgical Oncology

  • Emily Albright, MD

• Trauma Surgery

  • Salman Ahmad, MD
  • Stephen Barnes, MD

• Vascular Surgery

  • Jonathan Bath, MD
  • Todd Vogel, MD

• CHS (College of Health Sciences)

  • Iris Zachary, PhD