Category: Research

Dr. Cooper and Dr. Nguyen have been awarded a $1.6M NIH National Institute on Aging grant for the program Mentored Research Training in Aging and Surgery (MERITAS).

The Mentored Research Training in Aging and Surgery (MERITAS) program at the Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital will train surgical residents in health services research at the intersection of surgery and aging, with particular focus on frailty, Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, multimorbidity and serious illness. The overall goal of this training program is to create a diverse community of superbly trained surgeon-scientists to conduct studies and take on the mounting research, clinical and policy challenges to improving care for older surgical patients.

Zara Cooper, MD, MSc
Michele and Howard J. Kessler Distinguished Chair in Surgery and Public Health
Kessler Director, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Chair, Executive Advisory Committee, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Health
Director, Center for Geriatric Surgery
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Cooper is an acute care surgeon, trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she also serves as Kessler director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH), chair of the Executive Advisory Committee for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Health and director of the Center for Geriatric Surgery. Dr. Cooper is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and adjunct faculty at the Marcus Institute for Aging Research. A graduate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Cooper completed her general surgery residency and critical care fellowship at the Brigham; a trauma fellowship at Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington; and training in hospice and palliative medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Brigham.

Her research aims to improve palliative and geriatric care for older seriously ill surgical patients. A national leader in surgical palliative care and geriatric trauma, she has authored over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts, chapters, and abstracts and lectures nationally about surgical care in complex older patients. Dr. Cooper is currently funded through the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), the National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC), the Department of Defense and is a co-investigator on multiple federally funded grants. She also serves on numerous editorial boards and committees for professional societies, Mass General Brigham and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Louis L. Nguyen, MD, MPH, MBA
Vice Chair for Digital Health Systems, Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Fellowship Director, Center for Surgery and Public Health
Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Nguyen has a career that combines clinical practice, outcomes research and digital health. He is associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a practicing vascular surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Within the Department of Surgery, he serves as the vice chair for Digital Health Systems; fellowship director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health; and within the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, he is the director of Clinical and Outcomes Research, as well as the director of Quality, Safety, and Value. 

Dr. Nguyen earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology at Northwestern University.  He then received his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and his business administration degree from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.  He completed his general surgery residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University in St. Louis, the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a vascular surgery clinical fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  During his clinical fellowship, he also earned a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Nguyen’s health services research program combines clinical outcomes and economic analysis with three major focus areas: quantitative modeling of complex socioeconomic factors and interactions in patient care; quality and incentives in provider and systems health care delivery; and health care environmental sustainability. His fields of expertise include racial and ethnic disparities, innovation and market competition, novel statistical methods in HSR and the application of behavioral economics to implementation programs. He has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). His unique education and experiences allow him to bring medical expertise to health economics research and to bring econometric analytical techniques to medical research. He is most proud of his research mentorship of students, residents, and young faculty who come from diverse medical and surgical specialties for research training.  In his role as fellowship director at CSPH, he oversees the research and career development of surgical residents during their academic years.

Dr. Nguyen’s clinical interests are in vascular and endovascular surgery.  He utilizes a combination of open and minimally invasive modalities to diagnose and treat diseases of the arterial and venous system.  He is nationally recognized for his care of vascular thoracic outlet syndrome, a rare condition affecting young active adults. He is also a recognized expert in the treatment of acute and chronic venous disease, having a broad referral base for patients with complex venous issues.

Dr. Jarman has been awarded a $4.2M R01 award from the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities for the study titled, “Mitigating Injury Disparities with Evidence Based Trauma Systems Planning.”

Traumatic injury is a leading cause of death and disability in the U.S., disproportionately impacting racial and ethnic minorities, people with low incomes, and rural populations. This study will use a mixed methods approach to identify strategies state-level policy makers and trauma system leaders use to improve access to care for populations at higher risk of poor outcomes following traumatic injury. The study will culminate in a national consensus conference, generating a prioritized list of interventions trauma system leaders can use to reduce disparities in health outcomes following traumatic injury.

Molly Jarman, PhD, MPH
Lead Investigator, Department of Surgery
Lead Research Faculty, Health Informatics and Data Infrastructure, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Jarman is lead research faculty for Health Informatics and Data Infrastructure and an assistant professor with the Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH) in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She earned a PhD in health services research and policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the CSPH before joining the department as a faculty member.

Her research addresses trauma surgery and emergency medical services, with primary interest in trauma system organization and access to care for underserved populations, as well as development of methodologies for the use of naturally occurring data in health services research. Recent projects include examinations of orthopedic trauma workforce capacity in the U.S. and pre-hospital triage decisions for injured older adults.

Dr. Edelen and Dr. Pusic have been awarded a $2.9M R01 award for the study, “Increasing Engagement of Diverse Patients in Patient Reported Outcome Measurement to Address Breast Cancer Care Disparities using Health Information Technology in Community Cancer Settings.”

Disparities in breast cancer-related outcomes are pervasive and have been widely documented among racial and ethnic minorities, especially Black women. Substantial evidence demonstrates that routine patient-reported outcome (PRO) data collection using health information technology (HIT) results in improved cancer care delivery; however, PRO reporting remains low among Black patients and within the community cancer care (CCC) settings where they often receive care, and this increases disparities.

The objectives of this project, in partnership with the Association of Community Cancer Centers, are to use implementation science and health equity frameworks to develop and implement routine health information technology-assisted collection of patient-reported outcome (PRO) data at community cancer care settings serving a high proportion of Black patients with breast cancer. Completion of this project will produce generalizable knowledge that can be used to unlock the benefits of PRO reporting to historically underserved patients and advance equitable cancer care.

Maria Orlando Edelen, PhD
Associate Director, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value & Experience (PROVE) Center
Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Edelen is a quantitative psychologist and associate director of the Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value and Experience (PROVE) Center at Brigham and Women’s’ Hospital. Her area of expertise is in psychometric methodology and health policy research with a special emphasis on patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Throughout her career, Dr. Edelen has led or contributed to the development, evaluation and refinement of numerous PRO measures (e.g., the PROMIS Smoking Assessments, palliative care patients’ perception of feeling heard and understood, a measure of stigma associated with seeking mental health treatment on the military, asthma-related quality of life, asthma control, cancer stigma). Other work has focused on the development of PRO-based quality measures in primary and palliative care, and patient assessment in post-acute care and hospice.

Her current work includes leading two NIH-funded PRO development projects: an NCCIH project to develop a clinically relevant short profile measure of eight PROMIS domains of health-related quality of life (the PROMIS-16), and an NIA-funded project to develop a brief PRO measure to screen for cognitive impairment (the PRO-CS). She also co-leads the PROVE Center team in the implementation of imPROVE, a patient-centered HIT data collection and feedback tool for breast cancer patients at the Brigham and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and she supports multiple PRO initiatives at the Brigham and across the enterprise.

Dr. Edelen graduated from Boston College with a BA in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a PhD in quantitative psychology from the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

Andrea Pusic, MD, MHS
Chief, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Joseph E. Murray Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Medical Director, Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) Program, Mass General Brigham
Director, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value & Experience (PROVE) Center

Dr. Pusic is the chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Joseph E. Murray Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She is an internationally recognized thought leader in patient-reported outcome measurement and director of the Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value & Experience (PROVE) Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The patient-reported outcomes measures that she and her team have developed for surgical patients have been widely adopted for research and clinical care (www.qportfolio.org). Dr. Pusic has been funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In collaboration with the American College of Surgeons, she currently leads an AHRQ-funded study that has expanded PRO collection to 64 hospitals nationwide through the National Surgical Quality Improvement  Program (NSQIP). Dr. Pusic has authored and co-authored over 300 peer reviewed papers.

Dr. Pusic’s research focuses on the measurement of quality of life and patient satisfaction in surgery. Dual training in epidemiology and surgery has enabled her to lead a team of experts in psychometrics, quality of life and social science methods to develop, validate and use new quantitative measures to assess patient outcomes. The patient-reported outcomes instrument she developed for breast surgery, the BREAST-Q, has been widely adopted for research and clinical care and serves as the basis for development of other outcome measures in surgery.

She completed her medical degree at the Cumming School of Medicine (University of Calgary) in Canada and master of public health at Johns Hopkins University. She completed a general surgery residency at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and a plastic surgery residency at McGill University in Montreal, followed by a plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).