Page 13 - An Innovation Spirit ...

by 50 per cent over the next
decade.
“Heart failure is an epidemic,”
she says. “There are about half
a million Canadians with heart
failure. About 50,000 new cases
are diagnosed each year, and the
average life expectancy for those may be best remembered for the
diagnosed is about 2.1 years, a
little longer for women.”
Putting fewer people in the
hospital for treatment will mean
better treatment for everyone in
the long term, she explains.
“Hospitalization is one of the
markers of poor prognosis. As
much as we know that we do
amazing, good work in hospitals,
if you’re a heart failure patient toward creating the research
coming to the hospital, it’s a
marker that you’re in some
trouble.”
Treating hearts in a hospital
is also more expensive and less
cost-effective than prevention
and outpatient treatment. A
50 per cent reduction is “a
reasonable expectation of what’s
preventable,” she says.
“There’s a convergence. We
have an epidemic. We have
government trying to deal with
costs and, at the same time, we
have the issue of benchmarking
for what we should be doing to
ensure the standard of care,” Dr.
Ross explains.
She credits the Rogers family
Winter 2016
and the late Ted Rogers Cardiac Centre], and we’d like to 01 Dr. Heather Ross says putting
himself for understanding reduce it to five or six. It feels like fewer people in hospital for
that establishing the research the right time to make all these cardiac treatment will mean better
centre can address all three things happen.” treatment for everyone long term.
issues. She agrees that, for all
the Rogers’ accomplishments in Dr. Ross says that since the 02 Dr. Vivek Rao, Division Head,
communications and business, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Cardiovascular Surgery (right)
in a few generations the name Research was established last and the team perform a coronary
November, “I find myself waking bypass.
family’s contribution to heart up at three in the morning with
research. ideas.” She smiles at the notion 03 Being bold and aspirational
that she develops ideas the same are the goals, says Dr. Mansoor
“That would be nice,” Dr. Ross way as Rolling Stones guitarist Husain, iinterim Director, Ted
says. Keith Richards, who composed Rogers Centre for Heart Research
Satisfaction after waking up in (and Senior Scientist, Toronto
“I had the privilege of caring the middle of the night. General Research institute).
for Mr. [Ted] Rogers. When we
talked, he always wanted to talk Then Dr. Ross pulls out a chart,
about ‘what’s next’ – that’s what
he was like,” she says. The Rogers
family’s $130-million donation
centre is the largest single
monetary gift ever made to a
Canadian health-care institution.
Top-quality research and
attracting the world’s best
experts to work here can lead to
more effective treatment, more
efficient use of health-care funds
and better measurement of what
treatments work best and what
breakthroughs are on the way.
In addition to the target of
reducing hospitalizations by 50
per cent over a decade, “I added
the goal of reducing length of stay
by 20 per cent,” Dr. Ross says.
“On average, the length of stay
is about 10 to 12 days [at the
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