Hospital for Special Surgery Launches Quality Research Center

New York City—February 12, 2010

Patients with orthopedic and autoimmune conditions expect Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS)--because of its leadership role--to deliver the highest quality care. To further accomplish this mission, HSS is announcing today the creation of a Quality Research Center with an innovative structure for applying research methodologies to health-care quality issues.

Physicians, nurses and biostatisticians throughout the institution will now, through this new initiative, work together on conducting research in areas that impact on quality of patient care and patient safety. The research generated from the Center will enable HSS to improve best practices to benefit its patients and also allow HSS to provide evidence-based data that can be published and disseminated to other institutions.

“We have been conducting research on quality initiatives for many years within nursing, risk management, quality assurance, epidemiology and several other departments,” said Steven Magid, M.D., professor of clinical medicine, chair of the newly-formed Quality Research Center. “The establishment of this Center will allow us to integrate studies being conducted throughout the institution, facilitate a system to gather and share data and data sources, disseminate findings through publications and presentations, and initiate and direct resources for projects in a systematic way. Additionally, we are now in a better position to connect quality outcomes with data, laboratory systems, demographics and financial systems.”

One of the first research initiatives that the Center will focus on that affects hospitals throughout the country involves identifying the underlying elements to prevent patient falls. Nurses have 10 years of retrospective data on this important topic. Other research under the Center’s domain will include prospective studies looking at trending and stratifying data on infections after spine surgery and peripheral nerve injury leading to motor weakness.

“The Quality Research Center will enable us to support our mission of providing the highest possible quality patient care through research,” said Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO of Hospital for Special Surgery. “Under Dr. Magid’s leadership, the Center will undertake studies based on quality initiatives to demonstrate in a reproducible way how Special Surgery and other institutions can minimize risk using research principles, methodologies and standards.”

In addition to Dr. Magid, the Center includes the expertise of Michelle Horvath, R.N., assistant vice president, quality management; Stephen Lyman, Ph.D., director, epidemiology and biostatistics; Lisa Mandl, M.D., clinician scientist, rheumatology/research division; Joanne Melia, director, risk management; and Patricia Quinlan, Ph.D., research coordinator, nursing administration, as well as dedicated personnel for the research that will be conducted.