SOQIC is primarily engaged in surgical outcomes research and quality improvement, with interests in comparative effectiveness, implementation science, and health policy. Our research encompasses all surgical specialties and areas of medicine, with a particular focus on general surgery, surgical oncology and multidisciplinary oncology care, trauma and critical care, and vascular surgery. Our team has been incredibly successful in generating hundreds of publications in top-tier journals and acquiring many grants, including project grants, career development awards, and training grants.
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National Surgical Education Numbered Trials Group
Overview
The Surgical Education Numbered Trials (SENT) group leads National and International studies focused on improving the surgical residency experience and well-being for trainees. Continuing on the success of the Flexibility in Duty Hour Requirement for Surgical Trainees (FIRST) trial, 2019 saw the launch of The Surgical Education Culture Optimization through targeted interventions based on National comparative Data (SECOND) trial. In 2023, the SENT group will be launching the THIRD Trial, a project focused on expanding the improvement of organizational culture to better the work and learning environment in surgical departments and help address pressing issues with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in surgery. THIRD will also include a focus on faculty. The SENT projects work with 225 surgical departments in the United States and Canada, providing them with key performance data and ready to implement interventions designed to improve culture and wellness in surgical programs.
The SENT program is a collaboration with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the American Board of Surgery (ABS) and the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS).
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS and Yue-Yung Hu, MD, MPH
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Collaborating Faculty: Julie Johnson, MSPH, PhD; Gaurava Agarwal, MD; David Hoyt, MD; Thomas Nasca, MD; Josh Eng, PhD; Egide Abahuje, MD; Dawn Coleman, MD; Malachi Sheahan III, MD; Heather Ballard, MD; Audrey Rosenblatt, PhD, cRNA; Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD
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Current Fellows: Casey Silver, MD; Michael Visenio, MD; Eric Pillado, MD; Samantha Warwar, MD; Kimberly Golisch, MD; Joanna Swinarska, MD; Lauren Janczewski, MD; Catherine Valukas, MD; Suhail Zeineddin, MD.
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Past Fellows: Ryan Ellis, MD; Brock Heweitt, MD; Tarik Yuce, MD; Rhami Khorfan, MD; Cary Jo Schlick, MD; Lindsey Zhang, MD; Meixi Ma, MD; Brian Brajcich, MD; Matt Chia, MD; Chelsea Fischer, MD; Rachel Joung, MD; Andrew Hu, MD; Debbie Li, MD; Brian Nasca, MD; Bona Ko, MD; Jennifer Delgado, MD; Darci Foote, MD; Chrisine Wu, MD; Samuel Linton, MD.
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Staff: Daniela Amórtegui, MA; Natalia Mackiewicz, BA; Nate Monson, MS; Tia Zhan, MS.
Funding SourcesThe SECOND Trial is a partnership among the following:
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Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
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American College of Surgeons (ACS)
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American Board of Surgery (ABS)
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Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS)
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Society of Surgical Chairs (SSC)
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Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)
Selected High-Impact Publications
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Cancer Quality
Overview
Our work focuses on multidisciplinary groups of oncology care providers and quality leaders who seek to align and improve cancer care across the system. We aim to equip hospitals and individual providers with skills to identify their local performance gaps in cancer care in a rigorous manner based on high-quality data, and then implement solutions to those problems using established process improvement methods. The collaboratives will ultimately measurably improve adherence to best practice guidelines, quality of care, and outcomes while reducing variation and costs arising from unsafe, inefficient, or inappropriate care. Moreover, our group is known for several landmark studies in oncology outcomes and cancer care delivery.
Leveraging our work within the IU Health system, we have founded the Iliana Cancer Collaborative (ILCC), a first-of-its kind statewide cancer collaborative. Its mission is to convene a multidisciplinary learning collaborative of Illinois and Indiana hospitals improving the safety and quality of care for cancer patients. The ILCC offers novel strategies to support effective QI in oncology: (1) guided implementation and mentoring of QI projects, (2) high-quality, Illinois-specific comparative data augmenting the NCDB, (3) cancer-specific QI resources and education, (4) statewide sharing of best practices.
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Anthony Yang, MD, MS
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Collaborating Faculty: Numerous faculty members across departments, hospitals, and specialties
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Staff: Brianna D’Orazio, MPH
Funding Sources-
This work has been funded by the NIH/NCI, AHRQ, American Cancer Society, NCCN, and the IU Department of Surgery.
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Statewide collaboratives are supported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS024516) and reflect a partnership with the American College of Surgeons.
Ellis RJ, Ho JW, Schlick CJR, Merkow RP, Bentrem DJ, Bilimoria KY, Yang AD. National Use of Chemotherapy in Initial Management of Stage I Pancreatic Cancer and Failure to Perform Subsequent Resection. Ann Surg Oncol. 2020;27(3):909-918.
Selected High-Impact Publications -
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Health Policy
Overview
Evaluating the impact of policy initiatives on healthcare quality measurement, improvement and delivery has been a focus area of IU SOQIC, and this work has resulted in numerous changes in national quality measurement, pay-for-performance programs, and public hospital quality rating systems.
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS
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Collaborating Faculty: Jeanette Chung, PhD; Ryan Merkow, MD, MS
Funding Sources-
IU SOQIC’s Health Policy efforts have been supported by the NIH, AHRQ, the American College of Surgeons, and Northwestern Medicine.
Selected High-Impact Publications -
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Iliana Quality Collaboratives
Overview
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The Iliana Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative (ISQIC) comprises over 50 hospitals in Illinois and Indiana. ISQIC provides participating hospitals with a formal quality and process improvement training curriculum, surgeon mentors, and process improvement coaches as well as financial support for the implementation of QI initiatives. ISQIC hospitals work together to improve surgical quality and safety by sharing their experiences, best practices, successes, and failures. In addition, ISQIC hospitals report and receive comparative feedback on key process measures with the ability to view and compare empirical data about hospital performance and participate in the ISQIC initiatives. Hospitals are equipped to use their data to successfully implement quality improvement (QI) initiatives and improve care.
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Anthony Yang, MD, MS; Ryan Merkow, MD MS; Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS
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Collaborating Faculty: Josh Waters, MD; Eugene Ceppa, MD; Thomas Birdas, MD; Jeanette Chung, PhD; Julie Johnson, MSPH, PhD; Yue-Yung Hu, MD, MPH; Nisha Mohindra, MD; Ryan Merkow, MD, MS; David Odell, MD, MMSc; Mehul Raval, MD, MS; Sean Sachdev, MD
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Fellows: Casey Silver, MD
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Staff: Brianna D’Orazio, MPH; John Slocum, MPH; Nathan Monson, MS; Ying Shan, MS
Funding Sources-
Statewide collaboratives are supported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS024516) and reflect a partnership with the American College of Surgeons.
Selected High-Impact Publications -
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Using Surgical Video to Improve Surgical Technique
Overview
To date, most surgical quality improvement efforts have focused on preoperative and postoperative quality and safety with less work focusing on intraoperative care or surgical technique. Moreover, surgeons rarely receive feedback on their technical skills once done with training. Thus, we have developed multiple initiatives to leverage surgical video to improve surgeon technical skills. This is particularly valuable in the education of surgical trainees as well. This is done through peer coaching, scoring and comments from peers, and group discussions. Video-based feedback for the improvement of surgical technique leverages video of surgical procedures to facilitate discussions and learning. This work is carried out in the IU health system and through the Iliana Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative (ISQIC).
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS; Anthony Yang, MD, MS
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Collaborating Faculty: Brian Gray, MD; Brian Carr, MD; Ambar Banerjee, MD
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Fellows: Bona Ko, MD, MPH; Andres Guerra, MD; Andrew Hu, MD; Brian Nasca, MD; Arielle Thomas, MD, MPH
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Staff: Brianna D’Orazio, MPH; Nathan Monson, MS
Funding Sources-
Video coaching efforts are supported by IU SOQIC, ISQIC/BCBS-IL
Selected High-Impact Publications
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Perioperative Patient & Surgical Safety
Overview
To identify opportunities to inform and improve the quality and delivery of surgical care, IU SOQIC researchers have conducted hundreds of outcomes research studies and developed tools to help clinicians provide better care.
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Anthony Yang, MD, MS and Ryan Merkow, MD, MS
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Collaborating Faculty: Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS; Yue-Yung Hu, MD, MPH; David Odell, MD, MMSc; Sanjay Mohanty, MD MS
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Staff: Brianna D’Orazio, MPH
Funding Sources-
IU SOQIC’s Perioperative Patient Safety and Surgical Safety efforts have been supported by the NIH, AHRQ, BCBS-IL, and numerous other organizations and societies.
Selected High-Impact Publications -
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Evaluating and Improving National Quality and Safety Ranking Systems
Overview
Performance measurement has become integrated into national, regional, and local initiatives to improve healthcare quality, safety, outcomes, and equity in the U.S. Programs and policies increasingly tie reimbursement and reputation to performance. Patients often select where to seek care based on these ratings of healthcare quality, and payers and purchasers often use the ratings to direct patients on where to receive care. Our work in this space has focused on evaluating the scientific properties of healthcare performance measures and methodology underlying public and private quality ratings programs. Much of our research investigates measurement and program methodology to identify potential unintended consequences that may arise from issues related to measurement or methodology. Our objective has been to improve performance measurement, so stakeholders have better measures upon which to base their decisions regarding hospital performance. Our work in this space has frequently been published in high-impact journals such as JAMA and resulted in changes national policies and measurement programs, including those of U.S News, Vizient, and Medicare.
Research Team-
Lead faculty: Karl Y. Bilimoria, MD, MS; Jeanette W. Chung, PhD
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Collaborating Faculty: Cynthia Barnard, PhD, MBA, MSJS; Ryan P. Merkow, MD, MS
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Current Fellows: Michael Visenio, MD
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Past Fellows: Julia R. Berian, MD, MS; Eddie Blay, Jr., MD, MS; John Oliver DeLancey, MD; Mila H. Ju, MD, MS; Christine V. Kinnier, MD, MS; Jason B. Liu, MD; Christine A. Minami, MD, MS; Jennifer L. Paruch, MD, MS; Ravi Rajaram, MD, MSC
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Staff: Brianna D’Orazio, MPH
Bilimoria KY, Chung J, Ju MH, Haut ER, Bentrem DJ, Ko CY, Baker DW. Evaluation of Surveillance Bias and the Validity of the Venous Thromboembolism Quality Measure. JAMA. 2013;310(14):1482-1489. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.280048
Selected High-Impact Publications -