National Outcomes Databases

Our group uses the following secondary sources of data to answer clinical relevant questions on a national level:

1. Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States Database
2. Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results Database
3. Medicare Database
4. SEER-Medicare Linked Database
5. Nationwide Inpatient Sample
6. Area Resource File

Studied patient populations include children, adults, and elderly patients with low and high grade gliomas, meningiomas, pituitary tumors, acoustic neuromas/CP angle tumors, and metastatic tumors.

The focus of our work has included:

1. Investigating the role of pre-hospital factors in determining access to neurosurgical care
2. Studying the impact of patient, provider, and hospital level factors in determining inpatient outcomes among brain tumor patients undergoing neurosurgical care
3. Assessing the role of pre-hospital, patient, provider, and hospital level factors on long-term patient survival