The American Society of Anesthesiologists recognizes Sachin Kheterpal, M.D., M.B.A., with its 2013 Presidential Scholar Award

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) today presented Sachin Kheterpal, M.D., M.B.A., with its 2013 Presidential Scholar Award in recognition of his outstanding career in research. Dr. Kheterpal has successfully combined his medical, business administration, informatics and software development experience to create innovative ways to analyze patient outcomes.

In medical school, Dr. Kheterpal was co-founder and chief executive officer at Systems Engineering Consultants (SEC) and worked closely with the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to develop a perioperative anesthesia information management system (AIMS). SEC was later purchased by General Electric in 2000.

As a resident, Dr. Kheterpal completed his first large, observational electronic health record database study on the incidence and predictors of difficult and impossible mask ventilation. He also developed and validated the first acute kidney risk index for patients undergoing surgery as well as intraoperative predictors for postoperative cardiac events after general and vascular surgery.

“I congratulate Dr. Kheterpal on this well-deserved achievement,” said Kevin K. Tremper, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan. “It has been a pleasure to work closely with Dr. Kheterpal for the past 15 years. His work has legitimized outcomes research derived from electronic health records to help improve quality of care and patient safety.”

In 2008, Dr. Kheterpal was instrumental in the development of the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG), a large outcomes database for perioperative research. Today, more than 30 anesthesiology and surgical departments have reported on nearly 2 million perioperative records to better understand long-term outcome data. MPOG collaborates closely with the Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI).

Dr. Kheterpal serves as an associate editor of Anesthesiology and is an assistant professor of Anesthesiology in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan. He also is a member of its Liver Transplant and Vascular Anesthesia Team.