Onyekwere E. Akwari Assistant Professor of Surgery
Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences
DUMC 3512, Durham, NC 27710
Office: 919.668.3424
Mobile: 312.330.0019
Email: lisa.mcelroy@duke.edu
Administrative contact: charlene.newsome@duke.edu
Overview
Lisa M. McElroy, MD, MS, FACS (she/her) is an abdominal transplant surgeon with a health services research lab focused on understanding how complex health care processes and large multidisciplinary teams affect outcomes of high cost, high acuity patients. Dr. McElroy has a master's degree in health services and outcomes research methodology with supplemental training in health disparities research methods, engineering methods for healthcare system and process assessment, organizational behavior theory and change management, and implementation science.
As Dr. McElroy's research has progressed, an emerging theme has been the interplay between biologic and social risk, which each contribute to a patient’s ultimate success but receive disproportionate consideration in anticipation of and in response to subpar outcomes. She is currently involved in several efforts that build on this concept and employ an approach to health equity research that accounts for center and organizational-level characteristics when examining differences in care based on social determinants of health.
Lab Members and Collaborators
Nrupen Bhavsar, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor in Surgery
Wendy Webster, MA, MBA, FACHE
Director of Clinical Operations and Healthcare Analytics
Ursula Rogers
Senior Informaticist
Roland A. Matsouaka, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biostatics & Bioinformatics
Tyler Schappe, MS
Biostatistician
Jashalynn German, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Norine Chan
Resident, Duke General Surgery
Moronke Ogundolie
Medical Student
Jackie Henson, MD
Fellow, Transplant Hepatology
Daniel Guidot, MD, MPH
Fellow, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
CHART Collaborators
The McElroy Research Lab collaborates with physicians and scientists outside of Duke who are experts in the fields of organ transplantation, epidemiology, medical ethics, and more. To learn more about our collaborators, visit the Consortium for the Holistic Assessment of Risk in Transplant (CHART) website.
Additional Collaborators
The McElroy Lab also collaborates with the Laboratory for Transformative Administration (LTA), which utilizes health system data to address operational challenges that affect clinical care and have broader enterprise-wide impact, and the CTSI Social Informatics Program, which aims to help individuals better understand how upstream social and environmental factors impact health.
Advanced Training
Surgical residents and medical students are encouraged to inquire about research opportunities.
Select Publications and Media
- Pullen L. CHARTing the path forward: Improving health equity in transplant. Am J Transplant. 2023 Jun;23(6):697-699. doi: 10.1016/j.ajt.2023.04.023. Epub 2023 Apr 28.
- No Time to Spare: The push to erase racial bias in the organ transplant system https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/story/organ-transplant-inequities
- Q&A: Dinushika Mohottige, MD and Lisa McElroy, MD on ADPKD Health Inequities MedPage Today, March 1 2023; https://www.medpagetoday.com/resource-centers/autosomal-dominant-polycy…
- “Utilizing Social Determinants of Health Data to Address Racial Disparities in Kidney Transplantation” ASN Kidney News, July 2022; https://www.kidneynews.org/view/journals/kidney-news/14/7/article-p21_8…
- “Race Is Often Used as Medical Shorthand for How Bodies Work. Some Doctors Want to Change That” June 13, 2022 Kaiser Health News; https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/race-medical-shorthand-kidney-ca…
- “My Inspiration for Being a Transplant Surgeon” Donate life North Carolina Blog, August 2021; https://www.donatelifenc.org/blog/meet-dr-lisa-mcelroy-transplant-surge…
- “Living Kidney Donation Helps Black Patients Get Transplanted Faster” Duke Health Blog, September 2021; https://www.dukehealth.org/blog/living-kidney-donations-help-black-peop…
- “Striving for Equity in Transplant” The AJT Report| Volume 20, ISSUE 9, P2293-2294, September 2020
News
Understanding and Fixing Inequities in Palliative Care and Organ Transplant
The Dean's Distinguished Research Series concluded on April 20 with lectures from Kimberly Johnson, MD, professor of medicine and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and Lisa McElroy, MD, MS, assistant professor of su
Duke Surgery Celebrates the Founding of the Akwari Society and Onyekwere E. Akwari Professorship in Surgery
School of Medicine Establishes Onyekwere E. Akwari Endowed Professorship; Lisa McElroy Named Inaugural Recipient
Crisis of Care: Defining and Dismantling Health Disparities
Photo above: Dr. Rachel Greenup holds a consultation with a patient regarding financial options for treatment (Pre-COVID-19)
View a full list of Dr. McElroy's funded projects and publications on her faculty profile.
Projects, Grants, and Awards
Key Projects Underway
- Harmonization of multicenter electronic health record data for transplant research
- Modeling feasibility of opt-out kidney transplant referral system
- Transplant center screening programs for health-related social needs
- Multidimensional data visualization for transplant selection committee decision support
- Financial strain prediction and reduction
- Living donor/candidate dyad-based interventions to improve access to living donor kidney and liver transplant
Recent Grants and Awards
2023 NIH U54MD012530, REACH Equity Research Scholar Award
2023 1R01DK137110-01 National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
2023 Examining the Benefit of LCP Tacrolimus in Patients with Social Deprivation (Sponsored by Veloxis)
2022 1K08MD017632-01 National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities
2022 American Surgical Association Foundation Research Award
2021 RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program