A team of physicians and advanced practice providers from the USA Health Spine Institute traveled to New York City to take part in the 11th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit, where research developed in Mobile earned a spot in the national program. The trip gave the Mobile-based group a chance to compare notes with some of the busiest spine centers in the country and bring fresh ideas back to south Alabama patients.
The delegation included Richard Menger, M.D., MPA, who directs the Spine Institute and serves as vice chair of neurosurgery at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama; physician assistant Chelsea Lukenbill, PA-C; and Nikki Chason, CRNP, the lead advanced practice provider for the neurosurgery department. Menger described the trip as a chance to compare approaches with other high-volume programs, calling it “a real opportunity to share with other high-performing teams” the strategies USA Health is developing, while also learning what has worked elsewhere.
Research Focused on Getting Patients Home Sooner
The USA Health group’s work, titled “Delays from Utopian to Actual Discharge in Spine Surgery Patients: A Quantitative Analysis and Narrative Modeling,” was accepted for presentation at the summit. In plain terms, the project examined the gap between the day a spine surgery patient is medically ready to leave the hospital and the day they actually go home, then tried to pinpoint what causes that gap.
Delayed discharges are a well-known challenge in hospital care nationally. Even after a patient clears every medical benchmark for going home, factors such as paperwork, transportation arrangements, physical therapy scheduling, insurance authorizations, or the availability of home health services can add hours or days to a hospital stay. For spine surgery patients specifically, extra time in the hospital can raise the risk of complications like blood clots, infections, and deconditioning, while also driving up costs and tying up beds needed for other patients. By quantifying those delays and mapping out where they occur, the research aims to give hospital teams a roadmap for streamlining the process without cutting corners on safety.
Notably, the project was led by Connor Holm, a rising second-year medical student at the Whiddon College of Medicine, with support from the school’s 2025 Medical Student Summer Research Program. The program gives students hands-on research experience early in their training, pairing them with faculty mentors on projects that can directly influence patient care.
A National Forum Built Around Patient Safety
The Safety in Spine Surgery Summit is organized each year by the Safety in Spine Surgery Project, known as S3P, a group that brings together surgeons, researchers, and care teams from across the country to focus specifically on reducing complications and improving outcomes in spine procedures. The summit uses a systems-based approach, meaning it looks beyond any single surgeon’s technique to examine how hospitals, care teams, and processes work together to keep patients safe, from the operating room through recovery and discharge. Presentations at the summit are typically vetted through an academic review process, and having a project accepted signals that the work meets a national standard of rigor and relevance.
Bringing Best Practices Back to South Alabama
For the USA Health team, attending the summit was about more than showcasing their own research. Menger said the group is now focused on “implementing those proven best practices” learned from peers at other institutions, with the goal of raising safety standards and improving results for spine patients treated in the Mobile area. That could mean adjustments to discharge planning protocols, closer coordination between surgical and rehabilitation staff, or refined criteria for when a patient is truly ready to leave the hospital.
Spine surgery is one of the more common and consequential procedures performed in south Alabama hospitals, addressing conditions ranging from herniated discs and spinal stenosis to traumatic injuries and degenerative disease. Because recovery can be lengthy and complex, hospital systems that continually refine their post-operative processes, including discharge timing, tend to see fewer complications and higher patient satisfaction. USA Health officials say the Spine Institute’s continued involvement in national safety collaboratives like S3P reflects an ongoing effort to keep pace with, and contribute to, evolving standards of care in neurosurgery and orthopedic spine treatment.
USA Health, anchored by the University of South Alabama’s academic medical centers in Mobile, serves patients throughout the central Gulf Coast region, and its Spine Institute is one of several specialty programs affiliated with the Whiddon College of Medicine that combine clinical care with active research training for medical students and residents.