Heart Institute Priorities
With approximately 1400 physicians, nurses, researchers, technicians, allied health professionals, and other medical professionals, the University of Ottawa Heart Institute has flourished into one of Canada’s most distinguished heart health centers for the unparalleled care it provides to its patients, a world-renowned research Institute that brings science from bench to bedside, and the country’s main influencer when it comes to preventing heart disease. Its promise remains the very pillar on which it was built: Always putting patients first.
Quick Facts About the Heart Institute
Last year the Heart Institute performed
- 57,905 Diagnostic Tests
- 12,129 Non-Surgical Interventions
- 1863 Open-Heart and Catheter Based Procedures
- 1241 Pacemaker and Defibrillator Implantations
Heart Institute Funding Priorities
“We asked you to help us build one of the most comprehensive imaging facilities for cardiac care in Canada. Thanks to your donations, all of our imaging equipment will be in our new Cardiac Imaging Centre scheduled to open in June 2019. This facility will enable cardiologists, imaging specialists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and technologists to interact and share knowledge as a team. It will have the most up-to-date tools to guide us to select the right test for the right patient at the right time. Thank you.”
-Dr. Rob Beanlands, Chief Cardiology
“We asked you to provide surgeons with the tools and infrastructure to take cardiac surgery beyond procedure based treatments to diseased based treatment. The hybrid operating rooms In the new tower, and equipment like the da Vinci surgical robot, all purchased with your donations, are providing us with the ability to treat cardiovascular diseases that were not treatable a few years ago. Surgeons, cardiologists, anesthesiologists and researchers are working together side by side, developing innovative approaches to treatment and improving outcomes for patients today and tomorrow. Thank you.”
-Dr. Marc Ruel, Division Head, Cardiac Surgery
“We asked you to help start a conversation, sparking the social change needed to close the gaps and ensure women are as well-informed and well-cared for as men when it comes to cardiovascular disease. With your donation, the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Center was launched in 2013, and in only a few short years, has achieved a successful peer support program, health coaching, access to online (virtual) care programs and is the driving force behind the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance, a network of professionals dedicated to transform clinical practice. Thank you.”
– Dr. Thais Coutinho, Chief, Division of Prevention and Rehabilitation
Chair, Canadian Women’s Heart Health Center
“We asked you to support our world-leading scientists making major breakthroughs and finding the answers to change the way we prevent and treat heart disease. Your donations are helping the Institute to recruit new talent studying heart failure, valvular disease, atherosclerosis, arrhythmias, and more; and to acquire and use state-of-the-art research infrastructure such as imaging systems. Donations were also leveraged 7 times, with early stage research, funded by your donations, going on to secure national grant funding to conduct larger studies. Thanks to you generosity, we are making discoveries that will change the life of future heart patients. Thank you.”
– Dr. Peter Liu, Chief Scientific Officer
“We asked you to make patient recovery a priority. The new infrastructure means more patients and allows us to implement new procedures, requiring more specialists. The recovery experience is unique to each patient and the resources for recovery must align with the patient, not the process. The investment of donations in Heart Institute infrastructure, equipment, research and patient alumni initiatives will allow patients to recover more quickly than in past years, with less pain and go home to their family sooner. Thank you,”
– Dr. Stéphane Lambert Division Head, Cardiac Anesthesiology
Inside the new Critical Care Tower
Let the light in! Patients recovering from surgery are closely monitored in the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit with ultramodern equipment and highly trained staff. Patients may stay in the CSICU less than 24 hours, or it could be much longer. Each of the CSICU beds valued at $35,000, were purchased with donations.
Catheterization Suites, a cardiologist uses diagnostic imaging equipment to visualize the arteries and chambers of the heart. Procedures performed in the Cath Lab include coronary angiography (angiogram), PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention or angioplasty) and stenting. The imaging technology is valued at $1,000,000 for each Cath Lab and is purchased with donations.
Meet da Vinci! State-of the-art technology for minimally invasive surgical procedures. The da Vinci® Surgical System includes a console (on right) which is operated by a surgeon who is away from the operating room table. A second surgeon and a scrub nurse are guide the robotic instruments (on left) into the small incision. The system also features a magnified vision system which gives surgeons a 3D HD view inside a patient’s body.
Note the wristed instruments which can bend and rotate far greater than a human hand.
The centrepiece of the Critical Care Tower is the Hybrid Operating Room, combining the imaging capability of a cardiac Cath Lab with a state-of-the-art operating room allowing cardiac surgeons, interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists to work side by side.