Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

New onset atrial fibrillation (NOAF) is a common problem in the intensive care unit (ICU), with ~20% of patients developing this arrhythmia. It is seen across a spectrum of illnesses such as sepsis and respiratory failure. Critically ill patients who develop this arrhythmia have increased risk of stroke, heart failure and mortality, and development of this arrhythmia is associated with increased costs to the health care system. Despite the consequentiality of developing NOAF in critical illness, research of this arrhythmia in acute settings lags behind research in ambulatory patients. The difficulty in studying NOAF stems from lack of a common definition, challenges in real time detection and quantification of burden, limited interventions suitable for hemodynamically unstable patients, and lack of available resources for long-term follow-up. Despite these challenges, there is increasing interest amongst emergency medicine, cardiology and intensive care practitioners to research this arrhythmia, focusing on important topics such as prediction, prevention, treatment, anticoagulation and stroke prevention, and long-term management. The New Onset Atrial Fibrillation in Acute and Critical Care Conference aims to bring together an international, multidisciplinary group of NOAF researchers to advance research in this field. The first meeting, to be aligned with the Canadian Critical Care Forum, has 4 specific objectives: Objective 1: Establishing definitions of "new-onset atrial fibrillation" and core outcomes to be used in future research. Objective 2: Presenting current and proposed research to encourage collaboration and reduce redundancy. Objective 3: Development of the framework for a platform trial focused on the prevention, treatment, anticoagulation and long-term management of patients with new onset AF.