Minimally Invasive Surgery Research

Surgical Outcomes for Global Impact

Atrium Health’s minimally invasive surgical research is a patient-centric program with renowned surgeons, robust integrated infrastructure, and an ongoing practice of process improvement for surgical excellence, spanning clinical and outcomes research.

Our team of surgeons focuses on improving patient outcomes in a wide variety of minimally invasive surgical procedures by predicting what those outcomes will be prior to surgery. This information is then used to help patients manage comorbidities and enhance quality of life after surgery. Our efforts in this arena, notably in hernia repair surgery – the most common operation performed – have changed the way surgery is performed worldwide.

Focusing on quality of life improvement, our efforts have led to the following contributions:

• Development of the QoL scale and Carolinas Comfort Score (used in 40+ countries and translated in 28 languages)
• Research findings in complication prevention and management
• Exploration of causes for readmissions and what can be done to prevent them
• Research that looks at bacteria that cause surgical infections and infection prevention
• Development of apps predicting QoL and surgical outcomes for hernia repair

Providing Treatment for Complex Cases

Our team of surgeons often receives referrals for patients outside Atrium Health who have complex issues involving:

• Bowel reconstructions
• Complications with hernia repair
• Esophageal issues, including reflex and other swallowing problems
• Colorectal complications
• Adrenal diseases and other solid organ surgical challenges

Research Support by Comprehensive Lab Services

Our minimally invasive surgical research program is supported by a fully equipped research lab.

Designed to provide translational research that improves patient care, our lab provides:

• A full-time statistician, as well as data collectors, who track every Atrium Health surgical patient and review data stringently to determine what can be done better to improve outcomes
• Research fellows – often fully trained board-certified surgeons – who come to Atrium Health to learn more about their field
• A database of prospectively collected data from more than 9,500 patients

The information collected by our team isn’t only used to make our own surgeons better, it’s also shared to improve care provided by surgeons around the world.