Thinking outside of the box

The Libin Cardiovascular Institute (LCI) is dedicated to improving health in the local community and beyond through health promotion, community outreach, by raising awareness about cardiovascular risk factors and through research that matters to patients and their families. 

Engaging patients and communities to help identify, study and address the challenges impacting health is a key to finding solutions to problems that have a real impact on our patients. 

The LCI’s P2 Initiative is embracing these challenges with the goal of finding the right solutions for the right patients at the right time.

In 2016, a group of researchers specializing in population health, interventions to prevent and promote cardiovascular health, health policy and economics, data analytics, and patient engagement came together to establish the Person-to-Population initiative, later simply referred to as P2. Their goal was facilitate the formation of unique research collaborations that would lead to important scientific discoveries. 

Dr. David Campbell, MD, PhD, co-chairs P2 alongside Dr. Hude Quan, PhD. He says bringing researchers together opens up unique opportunities for outside-of-the-box research. 

“We are an eclectic bunch of researchers that do all kinds of research in the cardiovascular space, largely around prevention,” says Campbell. “What we see as our mission is to bring researchers together and provide the chance for cross pollination across disciplines and methodologies.”

Since its launch, P2 has been involved with several programs including the Libin Health Policy Initiative, which brings together cardiovascular health policy and health economics researchers with the goal of influencing health policy at the provincial and national level. 

The group has also established a community outreach program to promote health and raise awareness about cardiovascular risk factors. Their goal is to empower people to take charge of their own cardiovascular health by adopting healthy lifestyle choices, thereby preventing the onset of cardiovascular disease. 

The group also focuses on improving equity and diversity in research through patient involvement throughout the research process. 

“The work we do needs to be relevant to community members and the only way to ensure that it is by engaging patients through all processes of the research program” says Campbell, a clinician-scientist in the Departments of Medicine, Community Health Sciences and Cardiac Sciences at the University of Calgary.  “If you want people to change their behaviours, you need to know what is important to them. The only way to know that is by having them at the table.” 

Collaborative Projects

Several unique research projects have come out of collaborations within the group. 

One example of this unique work is a project that is being led by biostatistician and researcher Dr. Tolu Sajobe, PhD that is tackling shared decision making in complex coronary artery disease (CAD). The team is developing a tool for patients and their doctors that links patient preference data with clinical best practices to highlight the risks and benefits associated with the different treatment options. It promises to be a transformative leap in patient-centered care. 

Another project, led by Dr. Matthew James, MD, PhD, and Dr. Stephen Wilton, MD, is pushing the boundaries of patient engagement and shared decision-making. Using data from the Calgary-based APPROACH registry, one of the largest, longest running and most comprehensive cardiovascular databases in the world, the team developed a web-based computer program designed for shared decision-making in clinical kidney and cardiovascular care. 

The tool provides personalized benefit-risk information, empowering patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) to make informed decisions about heart health-related tests and procedures. 

Precision medicine projects

All of these projects are examples of using precision medicine techniques improve patient outcomes. This involves tapping into large data sources and using advanced AI techniques to develop tools, like specialized software and apps, that compare an individual patient’s data with that of thousands of others. These tools can be used to help determine an individual’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease, precisely diagnose existing conditions and determine the best treatment. 

Dr. James White, MD, PhD, who leads the Libin Cardiovascular Institute’s Precision Medicine Initiative explains the importance of precision medicine, which is expected to decrease costly treatment-related complications, reduce hospital re-admissions and produce better outcomes using fewer resources. 

“Right now, we are very reactive. We wait until someone comes into the hospital and then we look at that data,” he says. “It should be the opposite. There should be patterns in the data that are emerging that tell us to do something different to prevent things from happening like sudden death, heart failure and strokes. If you do it the right way, if you build data for those purposes, then an institution can operate in a preventative way.”

White’s team is undertaking a number of important precision medicine projects, including one that uses artificial intelligence-based software to precisely diagnose heart muscle diseases in seconds and predict future heart complications.

Mozell Family Analysis Core

Analyzing and interpreting quality data is key for any precision medicine project. That’s where the Mozell Family Analysis Core comes in. 

The Libin Cardiovascular Institute launched the initial analysis core team in 2013 under the leadership of 

Dr. Hude Quan and Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarn. In 2015, the core was renamed to reflect the generosity of its namesake, the Mozell Family, who began providing a generous annual gift. 

The group was transformed into an important resource for a wide variety of researchers, staff and students at the Libin Cardiovascular Institute, who can access Mozell’s services free of charge. 

The group specializes in and biostatistical and analytical methodology, and assists  researchers with their data needs, from setting up studies to analyzing and interpreting data. 

Since its creation, the Mozell team has supported more than 300 projects. At last count, the team had been acknowledged in more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and more than 35 thesis, dissertation and residency projects. 

In 2021, management of the Mozell Family Analysis Core was transferred to the Libin Cardiovascular Institute’s Precision Medicine Initiative. Since then, it has grown and analysts are becoming more closely aligned with the work of the Precision Medicine team to create services and supports for researchers across the spectrum of data needs that will enhance the cardiovascular research environment. 

According to Director of Program Development and Implementation Dr. Melanie King, PhD, who leads the Libin Institute’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), the Mozell team’s work will be further integrated into the PMI, providing a more comprehensive service model for all Libin researchers and collaborators.

Read more about the Libin Cardiovascular Institute's Top 20 Achievements of the last 20 years here.