Amandiy Liwo, M.D., MSPH, co-authored a paper with her statistical mentor Mark Beasley, Ph.D., from the UAB School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics and through project collaboration with Dale Parks, Ph.D., entitled "Generalized Collinearity Diagnostic Revisited" that was accepted by the 2023 American Educational Research Association (AERA) and will be presented.

AERA receives more than 11,000 submissions yearly. To ensure that the highest quality papers are presented, submissions are reviewed by qualified members of a review panel constituted by the SIG Multiple Linear Regression: The General Linear Model. The paper will be presented at the 2023 conference in April in Chicago, IL, in a session titled, “GLM Paper Session: Statistical Modeling and Related Issues in the Implementation to Empirical Educational Data”.

Our anesthesia care team constantly invests in creating and supporting health care leaders. Recently, Amandiy Liwo, M.D., MSPH, and Jeff Simmons, M.D., MSHQS, FASA, co-mentored John North, MS4, of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine through project collaboration with Dale Parks, Ph.D., CMQ, Joyce Crump, DNP, MSN, MBA, N.P., R.N., CMQ, and Dave Benz, B.S., utilizing data from the Anti-Delirium Perioperative Risk Optimizing and Management Planning Tool (PROMPTs) that looked at the effects of perioperative Midazolam on perioperative delirium in the elderly. Additional collaborators included Jeff Dodyns, D.O., MSHA, MSHQS, FASA, of Southern Anesthesia Management and Mark Beasley, Ph.D., from the UAB School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics. The final abstract was presented as a poster at the annual Medical Student Research Day on September 19, 2022, and won third place in the Surgery and Anesthesiology category. Out of three that are chosen annually for oral presentations at the Society for Perioperative Assessment and Quality Improvement (SPQAI), their abstract was selected to be presented orally at this year’s SPAQI conference on March 8-11, 2023, in Orlando, FL.
SPAQI conference on March 8-11, 2023, in Orlando, FL.

mpog mapThe UAB Heersink School of Medicine Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine has been named an active member of the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG).

“This endeavor highlights the value that all members of the department and its affiliates serve to successfully accomplish this national honor,” says Joyce Crump, DNP, MBA, N.P., R.N., CMQ.

Contributed to by more than 50 centers across the United States and Europe, MPOG provides access to an extensive multicenter database to advance knowledge and improve patient care. Data through MPOG can be used for research, quality initiatives, and educational purposes. From the research standpoint, it utilizes perioperative physiologic, medication, and laboratory data to conduct studies for publication in high-impact journals. The goal for quality outcomes is to improve the care of patients undergoing anesthesia by reducing unexplained variation using quality measures based on the best available evidence and current standards of care.

“MPOG offers accurate and reliable internal and external benchmarking for quality improvement,” says Philip McArdle, M.D. “The system extracts data from perioperative electronic health records (EHR) and transforms it into a standardized format and transfers it to a central coordinating center. This approach helps eliminate variation in documentation and enhances validity of perioperative research. The central data set provides UAB access to more than 21 million cases and more than 45 billion physiologic records."

MPOG Group PhotoBecoming a member of MPOG was a multi-year endeavor. From establishing IT software capabilities to gaining institutional and IRB approvals, extensive steps were taken to obtain detailed agreements to govern the exchange of protected health information. These efforts were followed by extensive clinical mapping and case validation. As an active site, this attention to data integrity will continue on a monthly basis.

Led by McArdle; Dale Parks, Ph.D.; and Crump; the MPOG team had tremendous stamina to see this project through to the point of full membership. From IT experts to faculty and dedicated CRNAs, all members of this team played an integral role in its completion. Members include: Dave Benz; Kathy Brazeel, CRNA; Ayesha Bryant, MSPH, M.D.; Josh Hagood; Amandiy Liwo, M.D., MSPH; Melissa Ramsey, CRNA; Angie Surles, MNA, CRNA; Kesha Thurston, DNP, CRNA; and Brooke Vining, CRNA.

While MPOG membership offers enhanced opportunities to use EHR data for research analytics, quality improvement, and education initiatives, MPOG members also benefit from UAB. “UAB offers a unique, highly diverse patient population,” Crump says. “We have a proven history of research excellence, and MPOG will offer new avenues of growth.”