Kevin Keefe Tremper MD, PhD

Dr. Tremper received his MD from the University of California, Irvine after completing a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. During this internship at Harbor/UCLA and a critical care research fellowship with Will Shoemaker to follow, he conducted studies on various techniques for continuously, non-invasively, monitoring oxygen. Because of his interest in tissue oxygen and oxygen monitoring, he conducted the first human trial of perfluorochemical-based red blood cell substitute in 1981. he completed a residency in Anesthesiology at UCLA Medical Center and returned to the University of California, Irvine as a faculty member, and was appointed chair in 1985. He accepted the position of Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan in 1990. He stepped down as Department Chair in December of 2019.

Dr. Tremper switched his research emphasis to information systems to manage clinical data for acute perioperative care. He initiated a co-development effort with a software company to create a perioperative information management system for patient care, education, and clinical outcomes research. Starting in 2008 the department initiated a nationwide/worldwide perioperative outcomes database consortium, the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG). Currently, there are 42 institutions in this data-sharing research consortium. Also, in 2008, Dr. Tremper initiated work on the development of a new generation decision support software system, AlertWatch®. This system is now running in eight academic centers. Dr. Tremper is the Past President of the Society of Academic Anesthesiology Chairs, the Morton Society, and the Association of University Anesthesiologists.