Research

The CAPER Program focuses its research around five major pillars: 

CAPER's 5 Major Pillars; Methods, Injury Epidemiology, Resuscitation, Analgesia, and Nutrition, Multi-Organ Dysfunction, Learning Health

Project Examples

  1. Examination of the use of capture-recapture methods to optimize ascertainment of exposures and outcomes in perioperative and critical care research
  2. Examination of natural experiment designs (coupled with Roger’s diffusion curve) to reduce residual confounding in observational perioperative research
  3. Improving methods for before-after studies in perioperative research
  4. Review of advanced methods for reducing cofounding in perioperative and critical care research (mediation analysis, natural experiment design, instrumental variable analysis, propensity scores, and interrupted time series)

Project Examples

  1. Mechanisms and clinical impact of myocardial dysfunction following traumatic brain injury
  2. Multi-organ dysfunction following traumatic brain injury
  3. Optimizing early hemodynamic management in adult and pediatric traumatic brain injury
  4. Trends and variation in healthcare utilization following severe acute brain injury
  5. Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare utilization following severe acute brain injury
  6. Systematic review of incidence of multi-organ dysfunction following moderate-severe traumatic brain injury
  7. Examination of impact of ICU care on outcomes following traumatic brain injury in Tanzania
  8. Clinical epidemiology of moderate traumatic brain injury in low and middle-income countries
  9. Descriptive epidemiology of outcomes (healthcare utilization, readmission, mortality, violence, arrest) following emergency room visit for opioid overdose
  10. Opioids following surgery in the United States and impact of the Veteran’s Affairs Opioid Safety Initiative
  11. Guideline adherence for multimodal analgesia in TKA (VA versus non-VA)

Project Examples

  1. Association of FDA warning (reading hydroxyethyl starch) with bleeding outcomes following musculoskeletal surgery in the United States
  2. Unintended consequences of albumin for perioperative resuscitation
  3. Balanced fluids versus saline on outcomes in critically ill patients: mediating effects of chloride level
  4. Progression of chronic kidney disease following major abdominal surgery: effect modification by baseline renal function
  5. Heart-rate and blood-pressure coupling in perioperative medicine
  6. Effect of oral nutrition supplements on perioperative outcomes
  7. Joint and combined effects of multimodal analgesia in perioperative medicine

Project Examples

Pulmonary Outcomes

  1. Examination of the introduction of Sugammadex on post-op respiratory failure
  2. Perioperative lung-protective ventilation strategies
  3. SCCM Discovery Network SAGE Study

Neurological Outcomes

  1. Association between gonadal hormones on ICH pathophysiology and outcome
  2. Affects of blood pressure agent class used after ICH  on hematoma growth and mortality
  3. Use of SSRIs prior to ICH affects long-term outcome
  4. Incidence, mediators, and outcome of ARDS after ICH
  5. Defining associations between serum, CSF, and radiographic biomarkers with acute ICH pathophysiology and long-term outcome

Project Example

  1. Duke Health System ICU Registry