IU Health Comprehensive Wound Center, which is part of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering, is pleased to share with you the exciting news that Lava R. Timsina, Assistant Professor of Surgery, PhD, has been named Associate Director for Outcomes Research for the IU Health Comprehensive Wound Center. The CWC is a hub for wound sciences and care, a place where the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense funded excellence in research meets clinical applications.
The Comprehensive Wound Center will maintain the growth and success of the existing wound clinics and integrate the clinical and research vision that Drs. Gayle Gordillo and Chandan Sen bring to IU Health.
“With the addition of these new research efforts, an increase in onsite physician engagement utilizing a multi-specialty panel, and the continued leverage of the clinical expertise of our current team of clinical wound specialists,” said Parveen Chand, MHA, FACHE, Chief Operation Officer at IU Health.
Timsina joined Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Surgery as a Research Data Analyst for the Center for Outcomes Research in Surgery (CORES) in 2017 after completing his PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. In 2018, he was named an Assistant Professor of Surgery
During his time with the university, Timsina has collaborated on a multitude of research projects, with more than 30 peer-reviewed publications appearing in the Annals of Surgery, Health Affairs, Liver Transplantation, and Journal of the American College Surgeons. Timsina also conducts a lecture series for surgical residents on research methods and application.
“I’m excited to start this new position because I feel there are still a lot of gaps in terms of knowledge and practices in wound care and healing,” Timsina said. “That is especially true in terms of diabetes because Indiana ranks among the top ten in amputations due to foot ulcer related wounds.”
Timsina has extensive expertise, training, and motivation in developing and applying robust statistical methods for analyzing surgical and wound-related outcomes studies. He has also advised and helped several principal investigators in study design, database management, power and sample size computation, statistical analysis, and sensitivity analysis in trauma, surgery, and wound-related outcomes studies. He has provided significant analytical support to analyze data related to limb ischemia and wound-related proteomics/metabolomics.
Timsina brings to this position a wealth of experience in analyzing social determinants of health in surgical and wound outcomes using novel statistical approaches. In addition to analyzing longitudinal data and randomized controlled trials, Timsina has also examined observational data in a causal analytical framework using quasi-experimental methods such as propensity score matching and instrumental variable approach for surgery, trauma, cancer and wound-related outcomes.
Timsina will continue to provide consultation for faculty and residents in study design and statistical analysis. Through his research in wound care, Timsina is motivated to conduct studies to fill in knowledge and practice gaps in wound healing and reducing rates of amputations.
“I’m delighted that Dr. Timsina is interested in furthering this underdeveloped aspect of wound care,”said Sen, PhD, Executive Director for the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering. “I envision that in a couple of years the IU Health Comprehensive Wound Center will emerge as a major national leader in wound care outcomes research.”
In his new role, Timsina will be responsible for outcome research within the wound center, he would be looking at sociogenomic aspects and wound-related outcomes on patients, writing grants and strengthening T3-T4 research.