MindSet, short for Manitoba Integrated Data Set, is a new project that will help to integrate Manitoba’s extensive clinical health data into a cohesive and readily accessible province-wide data platform.

The Province of Manitoba and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will each invest $600,000 a year over four years, for a total of $4.8-million, to support work on the project, which will enhance real-time access to the data health-care providers need to make informed decisions when caring for patients. This project received funding support through Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR).

“Health-care providers need timely access to information so we can maximize the benefits and deliver better health care sooner for Manitobans,” said Cameron Friesen, Health, Seniors and Active Living Minister at the Province of Manitoba. “Investing in this research will help us find ways to ensure clinical providers have access to the data they need to make more informed decisions about patient care, which supports the implementation of Manitoba’s provincial clinical and preventive services plan.”

“This project demonstrates the power of research in improving the health of Canadians and enhancing the health care experience for patients while making health care systems more effective and efficient. This is an excellent example of a collaborative effort supported through our SPOR program,” said Dr. Tammy Clifford, Vice President, Research Programs, CIHR.

Three physicians at the University of Manitoba – Dr. Ryan Zarychanski, Dr. Paul Komenda and Dr. Marshall Pitz – are leading the MindSet project, each focusing on a different area of health care. Each physician will focus on one of three different initiatives looking at how timely access to data can be used to:

• create efficiencies to reduce the need for blood transfusions and ensure appropriate care is provided during surgeries;
• enhance the use of home dialysis to ensure care is delivered closer to home for rural patients; and
• enhance navigation to health care for cancer patients to ensure timely access to care, particularly in rural and northern Manitoba.

“Mindset, the Manitoba integrated data platform, will transform how patients and providers access, and are informed by, health data,” said team lead Dr. Ryan Zarychanski, associate professor of medicine, Max Rady College of Medicine and senior scientist, Research Institute of Oncology and Hematology. 

“By integrating these clinical databases we use everyday, we’re not creating another super database, we’re transforming the way we use health care in our province, in fact we’re creating the successful mindset for our health care system to function for generations to come,” said Zarychanski.

“For the first time, major health care organizations and partners are able to work together to jointly plan clinical and preventative services, jointly establish provincial clinical policies, guidelines and protocols and support each other in ways we haven’t before in the day-to-day delivery of health services,” said Dr. Brock Wright, CEO of Shared Health.

The minister noted these projects will inform how data is collected and used in more real time as the province’s health-system transformation moves forward.

“As we develop one system for data collection, information management and analysis, it’s important to find out what kind of data is needed and how it can be provided in more timely ways so that we can maximize the benefits,” said Friesen. “This project will guide our investments in this area in the months and years ahead and allow us to maximize the benefits and deliver better health care sooner for Manitobans.”

The SPOR Rewarding Success initiative was established in 2017 to address complex health problems. The initiative provides funding in a way similar to social impact bonds, where a portion of any economic benefits from research projects are reinvested to conduct further research studies.   

For more information on SPOR, please visit CIHR’s website.  

“This type of research is unique in that it engages patients in all aspects of study and ensures results are relevant to the priorities that they have identified,” said Pedersen. “By working together and investing in these networks, we are helping Manitoba’s research institutions create the innovative solutions needed to support patients across this province and beyond.”

Pedersen noted these four Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) projects connect researchers, health professionals, patients and policy makers across the country to improve the health of Canadians living with chronic diseases. The networks received a combined total of $10.1 million including $3.1 million in provincial funding through Research Manitoba, $6 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and an additional $1 million from local research partners.

“We thank our funding partners for providing the support our researchers need to engage in the demanding clinical research these complicated matters require,” said Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and distinguished professor, University of Manitoba. “Today’s announcement means the University of Manitoba is even better positioned at the forefront of these crucial fields of inquiry. I would like to congratulate the scientists on their successful research programs to date and wish them all the best as they now delve deeper into these topics of great importance to so many of us.”

There is a strong University of Manitoba presence across SPOR networks and this latest significant long-term funding will enhance the university’s success in chronic disease research.

ABOUT THE NEWLY FUNDED SPOR RESEARCH PROGRAMS

Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects: the IMAGINE-SPOR chronic disease network

Principal Investigators: Drs. Charles Bernstein and Laura Targownik, Internal Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

This network is a national collaboration of patients and scientists that will look at how gut bacteria and diet affect the course of inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome, and at the anxiety and depression associated with these disorders.

Listening, Learning, Leading: Canadians Seeking Solutions and Innovations to Overcome Chronic Kidney Disease (Can-SOLVE CKD)

Principal Investigators: Drs. Allison Dart (Pediatrics & Child Health/Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba), Paul Komenda (Internal Medicine) and Navdeep Tangri (Internal Medicine), Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

This network will improve care for people with kidney disease. It aims to reduce the number of people who require dialysis or organ transplants, or who develop related illnesses that are debilitating or deadly.

CHILD-BRIGHT: Child Health Initiatives Limiting Disability – Brain Research Improving Growth and Health Trajectories

Principal Investigators: Drs. Kristy Wittmeier (Pediatrics & Child Health/Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba), Gina Rempel (Pediatrics & Child Health) and Ana Hanlon-Dearman (Pediatrics & Child Health/Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba), Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

This network will achieve brighter futures for children with brain-based developmental disabilities and their families by creating novel interventions to optimize development, promote healthy outcomes, and deliver responsive and supportive services across the life-course.

SPOR Network in Diabetes and its Related Complications

Principal Investigators: Drs. Paul Fernyhough (Pharmacology & Therapeutics/St. Boniface Albrechtsen Research Centre) and Jon McGavock (Pediatric & Child Health/Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba), Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

This network will transform the health outcomes of people with diabetes and its related complications. It will facilitate important and meaningful connections between patients, their primary healthcare providers, and specialists to achieve improved health care and significant cost savings within the health system.