Understanding Surgery at Mass General

Explore resources for patients seeking to understand all aspects of their surgical care—from the benefits of data collection to how to prepare for recovery—and for physicians interested in learning about Mass General’s approach to surgery.
Image shows a patient and a health care worker wearing masks and bumping elbows
Image shows a patient and a health care worker wearing masks and bumping elbows
Image shows a patient and a health care worker wearing masks and bumping elbows

Data Collection After Surgery

COMPASS is exploring how to automate data collection for mandated surgical patient registries to reduce administrative burden and supply data for quality improvement, research and innovation.

Predicting Surgical Risk Using Artificial Intelligence

COMPASS leverages artificial intelligence to predict and model surgical risk and determine the best interventions, or treatments, for high-risk patients.

Preparing for Recovery After Surgery

Mass General takes a patient-centered, evidence-based approach to surgical care that empowers patients and offers resources for them to use to enhance their recovery after surgery.

COVID-19 and Surgery

COMPASS clinicians have conducted several projects related to understanding the COVID-19 virus and its impact on surgical care and outcomes.

COMPASS' Patient Safety in Surgery Webinar Series

Next Generation Quality & Safety Measures: The Intel Inside of Payment Reform

In this webinar, Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, discusses the next generation of measures that are needed to continue driving improvements in health care quality, outcomes, equity and affordability.

Lessons from The Long Fix: Physicians and Patients Coproducing Quality & Safety

In this webinar, Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, MBA, president of Verily Health Platforms, shared strategies for leading quality improvement and change to work toward a health care system that provides better care, more efficiently and at a lower cost.

The Surgeon-Anesthesiologist Relationship: Bridging the Blood-Brain Barrier for Patient Safety

While teamwork is understood to be critical to perioperative patient safety and quality of care, the surgeon-anesthesiologist dyad is especially critical to ensure both. In this webinar, a team of experts suggest numerous ways in which positive surgeon-anesthesiologist relationships can be fostered.

1 of 3

Building Strength Before Surgery

Advances in Prehabilitation

Motaz Qadan, MD, PhD, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgical oncologist, discusses his research on prehabilitation and its promising potential for patients with pancreatic cancer.

1 of 1

In a reversal of the traditional order of cancer treatment, patients are working hard to build physical fitness and improve nutrition before cancer surgery as part of a new pilot study at the Mass General Cancer Center.

“Instead of rehabilitation, it’s prehabilitation,” says Motaz Qadan, MD, PhD, liver and pancreatic oncologic surgeon, who guides his cancer patients through a fitness and nutrition program for several months before surgery. By measuring their health and disease throughout their treatment, Dr. Qadan and colleagues hope to learn whether patients who improve their fitness and overall health before surgery have better short-term and long-term health afterwards—including how well their cancer is responding to treatment.

View related articles

Learn more

Quality of Life After Surgery

Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are a series of scientifically developed questions specific to a disease, condition or surgery. They’re completed by the patient, in their own voice, describing their care experience, symptoms and outcomes. These data are available in the patient's medical record and often used for clinical care during the visit, but also can be used for measuring quality care over time such as well as whether the patient is getting better or worse.

In 2014, Mass General Brigham embraced a plan to design and implement a large-scale PROMs program. Since then, it has built the world's largest PROMs program. Mass General Brigham is striving to make the PROMs program accessible enterprise wide for all health care providers to adopt.

View related publications

Strengthening patient care through measurement & analysis of surgical outcomes and data

The Center for Outcomes and Patient Safety in Surgery (COMPASS) combines clinical collaboration and data to ensure, amongst all surgical and procedural colleagues, the safest, most appropriate and effective and highest quality procedure for every patient, every time.

Our missionOur publications Email us