Background: Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer diagnosed in the United States and accounts for > 50,000 deaths nationwide annually. With data showing that oncologic treatment at National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated comprehensive cancer centers improves outcomes in a variety of malignancies, understanding the drivers behind this is vital to help bring the world-class care being administered at comprehensive cancer centers to underserved populations across the U.S. One component of colorectal cancer care that has a paucity of data afforded to it is the effect of increased time from diagnosis to surgery on survival. Methods: Patients diagnosed with AJCC stage II or stage III colorectal cancer between 4/2011 and 11/2015 and either underwent surgery or adjuvant chemotherapy within the University of Texas Southwestern system were selected. Several pertinent data points were abstracted via the EMR including date of diagnosis, surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy, progression, and death. A retrospective analysis was performed on the abstracted data to determine if the number of days between diagnosis and surgery was correlated with increased survival. Spearman coefficients were calculated to determine correlations between the data. All tests were two-sided. Results: Out of 203 patients identified, 113 patients had complete data available and were included in the study. The average age at diagnosis was 62.6 and average follow-up time was 41.4 months. Median time to surgery was 21 days (25th percentile-75th percentile: 4 – 53 days). There was a significant negative correlation between days from diagnosis to surgery and mortality (Spearman’s r = -.392, p < .001). Survivors had a mean of 42.7 days from diagnosis to surgery (SD = 56.4) and nonsurvivors had a mean of 61.7 days (SD = 46.9). Conclusions: There was a significant negative correlation seen in days between diagnosis and surgery and survival during the study period, which indicates that early surgical intervention may be an underappreciated indicator of quality colorectal cancer care. Further research should be conducted to better understand the relationship between early surgical intervention and prognosis in limited-stage colorectal cancer.