Richard Hughes

Richard Hughes, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Michigan and holds an affiliation with the Biomedical Engineering (BME) program. He leads the Laboratory for Optimization and Computation in Orthopaedic Surgery (LOCOS), which focuses on applying computational methods to improve musculoskeletal health. His primary initiative is the Michigan Arthroplasty Registry Collaborative Quality Initiative (MARCQI), a statewide registry-based quality improvement collaborative for hip and knee replacement surgeries.

Research Interests: Dr. Hughes’ work spans biomedical computation and modeling, organ-level biomechanics, causal inference in healthcare quality improvement, and the translation of registry data into clinical practice. He also investigates biomechanical models for legal contexts, particularly spinal injury and slip/fall events.

Key Contributions: MARCQI has grown to include 44 hospitals and 377 surgeons, analyzing over 54,000 cases to reduce transfusion rates, improve infection prevention, and optimize implant selection. Recent work includes evaluating cemented hip stems, uncemented knee implants, and aspirin efficacy for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Dr. Hughes has advised numerous graduate students across disciplines like Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Industrial & Operations Engineering.

Current Activities: LOCOS adapts occupational biomechanics models for litigation support using hybrid Bayesian networks. During the pandemic, all work transitioned to remote collaboration. Dr. Hughes is on sabbatical until September 2023, limiting new student advising during this period.