Chris Tignanelli Awarded NIGMS Subaward to Develop Decision-Making Tool

Chris Tignanelli, MD, MS, will serve as the University of Minnesota site-PI of an R01 grant awarded through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) that kicked off April 1. The project revolves around developing a shared decision-making tool called MySurgicalRisk that helps clinicians and patients understand the postoperative risk profile for an individual patient.

The goal of this research is to address the large number of cases where clinicians misjudge patient acuity after surgery. Surgeons face many constraints that make it difficult for them to make frequent, high-stakes decisions about postoperative care with incomplete information.

In this project, researchers will further optimize and conduct additional external validation for a previously developed and validated deep learning model that draws from electronic health record (EHR) data using an interoperable data standard known as OMOP to estimate patient acuity. These models create the tool MySurgicalRisk, which will provide clinicians with a framework to decide postoperative triage to the ICU versus general ward. 

The University of Florida serves as the primary awardee for this grant with a subaward to University of Minnesota. This effort will be supported by grant: R01GM149657 through December 31, 2027.