Mission Statement

The Medical Operations Research Core supports innovation in development of care delivery models that improve patient access, patient flow, safety and clinical operational efficiency using tools of operations research and industrial engineering.

Vision Statement

The Medical Operation Research Core to facilitate faculty development of novel clinical care delivery programs that make “patient`s lives better,” using state of the art operations research tools and stimulating dissemination through publications and presentations.

Perioperative Pain Program

The PPP provides consultation for 100% of surgical patients on chronic opioids prescribed to treat chronic pain or as part of Medication-Assisted Treatment Programs (MAT). PPP formally evaluates ODSP approximately 4 weeks prior to the scheduled date of surgery. Pre-surgical evaluation serves to educate and guide patients’ pain expectations following surgery, introduce multimodal analgesia including postoperative use of regional analgesia where appropriate, and initiate opioid weaning protocol. The goal is to reduce opioid consumption by 10-25% before surgery while maintaining effective pain management through multimodal analgesia. PPP follows the patient throughout postoperative hospitalization and manages their analgesic regimen post operatively for 12 weeks (3 months) after discharge from the hospital with a final “warm hand off” to the community physician. PPP includes a multidisciplinary team of acute and chronic pain specialists including anesthesiologists, psychiatrists and nurse practitioners who provide continuity of care at each perioperative stage. Addiction medicine and integrative medicine specialists and physical medicine and rehabilitation services are available for consultation as needed with plans to expand these services into the clinic.

Medical Operations Core Leaders


Kayode Williams, MD, MBA, FFARCSI
Medical Director of Medical Operations Research Core
Associate Professor, Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine


Maqbool Dada, PhD
Co-Director of Medical Operations Research Core
Professor, Carey Business School


Chester Chambers, PhD
Co-Director of Medical Operations Research Core
Associate Professor, Carey Business School

Core Members

Tangwan Azefor, MB, BS
Sally Bitzer, MD
Marie Hanna, MD
Lynette Mark, MD
Jamie Murphy, MD
Ed Nguyen, MD
Yael Varnado-Rhodes, MD