The Surgical Outcomes & Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) is a collaborative health services, outcomes, patient safety and quality improvement research enterprise between our department, the Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research, the Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH), the Northwestern Institute for Comparative Effectiveness Research (NICER) in Oncology and others. Our research focuses on examining the quality of care delivered across the U.S. and subsequently developing improvement strategies. Our research spans all surgical specialties, with a particular focus on general surgery and surgical oncology. We work with NMH on numerous practical quality improvement initiatives, including American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program operations.