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Biostatistics
and Clinical Outcomes
Statistical Program
The Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Outcomes provides statistical resources to clinical and basic research programs in the Department of Anesthesiology. We contribute to experimental design, data analysis, and scientific interpretation of clinical and basic research studies. Our mission is to promote research of the highest quality by encouraging application of sound statistical principles and by developing productive collaborations with clinicians, research faculty, and other members of the research community.
Research Program
The division contributes to improved patient care by aiding interpretation of research results and enabling dissemination of new insights through peer-reviewed publication. Because the department’s clinical and basic research programs interact in a synergistic way, with clinical research contributing novel hypotheses to basic research and basic research translating into clinically important advances, our contributions to both clinical and basic research have much in common. In both areas, we help clarify the potential of proposed study designs to achieve their goals by providing sample size or power computations. Our experience with the structure of different patient databases and protocols for populating them helps ensure the feasibility of retrospective studies and inform the design of prospective ones.
Perhaps our most visible role in research support involves data analysis. We bring a wide array of contemporary analysis methods involving statistical modeling, hypothesis testing, and parameter estimation to problems of data interpretation. In addition to traditional methods of data summary and statistical inference, we frequently contribute graphical displays of data for presentation or publication.
During the year, we have continued to contribute to clinical research studies such as protection from perioperative organ injury, alternative analgesic techniques, and utility of transesophageal echocardiography. We have also continued to support basic research studies involving mechanisms underlying perioperative effects on long-term quality of life and genetic associations with cardiac surgery outcomes. In addition to these studies, we have contributed to the development of research proposals in support of the department’s strong commitment to externally funded research. Over the past year, we worked on many research projects involving investigators at all levels. Our collaborative efforts yielded 12 co-authored publications. Among them, we note that Dr. Morris’ work on genotyping errors received a Fellows Award for Research Excellence from the NIH.
Effective collaboration requires critical evaluation and appropriate application of contemporary statistical methods. Areas of continuing interest include applications of factor analysis to cognitive outcomes data, statistical methods for detecting genetic association with clinically important outcomes, and feature identification and classification in high-dimensional data such as microarray and metabolomic data. We have also continued to update our knowledge of statistical software.
We continue to serve as members of Data Safety and Monitoring Boards for several study protocols within the department. This ongoing vigilance toward unanticipated outcomes helps ensure safe care for patients while seeking the best treatments.
Training Program
Part of our mission is to promote a sound understanding of statistical principles. We view the one-on-one exchange that clarifies relationships between study goals, experimental design, and statistical inference as a vital and rewarding aspect of collaboration. Effective collaboration, however, acknowledges that the value of quantitative methods must emerge from the context of investigation. To this end, we actively mentor research fellows in the statistical aspects of their chosen project. Our division also participates in ongoing discussions of statistical issues at conferences and seminars with faculty, fellows, and medical students.
Goals
Our goals for the coming year are to continue to respond in timely fashion to new requests, to promote greater understanding of statistical principles, and to play a vital role in research that leads to improved patient care and outcomes.
As part of the Clinical Anesthesia Research Endeavors group, which oversees clinical research within the department, we look forward to engaging in new clinical and basic research initiatives and to enhancing awareness of statistical principles and their role in understanding quantitative relationships.
The upcoming year promises increased efficiency in access to research data as we continue to collaborate with Duke Health Technology Solutions’ perioperative services group to establish a data dictionary. As a well documented catalogue linking existing databases to standardized medical terminology, the data dictionary will function as a vehicle for communication, allowing researchers to identify available data, and as an organizing principle for computing infrastructure design, allowing researchers to efficiently access a wide variety of data. We look forward to the positive impact this substantial data management project will have on improving the efficiency of data access within the department.
In the coming year, we in the Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Outcomes will continue to apply our complementary mix of quantitative skills and strong commitment to effective collaboration to ensure the department’s statistical needs are met. We look forward to productive collaborations on challenging research initiatives.
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Richard W. Morris, PhD
Chief, Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Outcomes
Office: (919) 684-0629
E-mail: richard.morris@duke.edu
Research Staff
Barbara Phillips-Bute, PhD
William D. White, MPH
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