Data and AI are keys to the future at Ottawa Heart Institute

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In an Ottawa institution dedicated to beating hearts, something new is making hearts flutter: data and artificial intelligence.

With the opening of a new digital innovation hub last week, The University of Ottawa Heart Institute is taking a leap into the future of medicine, accelerating the expanded use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to advance research and improve patient care, say Heart Institute officials.

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“The Data Science Centre is a place where everyone brings different expertise to the table, but where data is the common language,” said Dr. Jodi Edwards, an epidemiologist, chair of the Data Science Centre’s operational committee, and the director of both the Brain and Heart Nexus Research Program and the Population Outcomes Research Unit at the Heart Institute.

She said artificial intelligence (AI) can become an important tool, especially at a time when the health system is faced with so many challenges.

“People who can capture and leverage and utilize data are going to be at the competitive forefront because AI is coming. I think it is going to be really critical in the face of our health care system that is facing an aging population and is increasingly resource-constrained,” Edwards said.

“In this post-COVID world we are burdened with, there are lots of ways AI can become a tool that we use to our advantage.”

Artificial intelligence is already being used and studied at the Heart Institute. Dr. Christopher Sun, a scientist at the Heart Institute and a Canada Research Chair in data analytics for health systems transformation, is using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to address health-care worker shortages by making the system more efficient, such as by improving how operating rooms are scheduled. He is also using the tools to address inequities in health care.

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Sun’s work includes using AI to try to predict in real-time which cardiac patients are at the highest risk of in-hospital cardiac arrest. Beyond identifying those patients, the research involves changing the system of responding to such medical crises. He is also using artificial intelligence to look at surgical workflows to improve efficiency.

Crucially, said Edwards, being able to combine data from various sources can allow artificial intelligence to help researchers and clinicians find new solutions to ongoing problems.

Finding ways to bring data together to make use of it can improve efficiency and make sure those at highest risk get the treatment they need, she said. That is increasingly crucial at a time when the health system is “resource-constrained.”

Some have raised fears about the use of artificial intelligence in the field of medicine, but officials at the Heart Institute and elsewhere says those who don’t make use of it to enhance knowledge and care will be left behind.

Edwards said the data centre will also become a portal for combined neurological, mental health and cardiac data, in collaboration with McGill University and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, an initiative that is “completely unparalleled” and builds on the inter-relationships of neurological, mental and cardiac health.

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The centre is a legacy project of outgoing Heart Institute President and CEO Dr. Thierry Mesana, who retires this spring.

“This is an important moment for data science, technology, digital health, and for the Heart Institute,” he said. “(It) will propel the Heart Institute’s success and strengthen our reputation as a global innovator in cardiovascular care, research, and education for generations.”

Timothy Zakutney, senior vice president of digital health and cardiac technology, called the establishment of the new data science centre a triumph for the Heart Institute, “one with significant potential to reshape cardiovascular research and health care delivery.”

The approximately 3,000-square-foot centre within the Heart Institute includes offices, pods and shared workstations where multidisciplinary teams will build datasets that can be used by researchers and clinicians to design studies and research trials and inform care. The centre is designed to promote collaboration by groups that might not otherwise work together. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are at the heart of the new centre, say officials.

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