Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grants - Institute/Initiative Community Support

People with severe mental illness (SMI) die on average 15 years earlier than the general population, often due to an increased risk of treatable physical conditions like type two diabetes and heart disease. While prediction tools have been a cornerstone of physical health prevention approaches in the general population for decades, existing tools underestimate the risk of these disorders in young people with SMI. Therefore, an underserved, high-risk population miss critical opportunities for prevention. The Psychosis Metabolic Risk Calculator (PsyMetRiC) is a predictive tool specifically designed to predict risk of short-term weight gain, metabolic syndrome, and type two diabetes in young people with SMI. It has been tested in 8 countries including Canada, and recently hit a critical milestone for precision care in mental illness by becoming the first prediction tool in psychiatry to register with the UK healthcare regulator (the MHRA). PsyMetRiC could have significant benefits to Canadian mental health by providing early risk detection for young people with SMI. However, no prediction models are currently used in Canada for psychiatry, so there is no defined pathway for translating PsyMetRiC into clinical practice. This project aims to conduct vital knowledge-gathering and planning work to form a strategy for how to begin using PsyMetRiC at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. Initially, we will engage the services of a regulatory consultant to compare UK and Health Canada licensing requirements, and prepare a plan to register PsyMetRiC with Health Canada. In parallel, we will conduct a series of workshops at CAMH with clinicians, patients, and hospital staff to identify key barriers for using PsyMetRiC in clinical practice. Finally, we will hold a strategy meeting with key experts including patients, clinicians, researchers and economists to form a multidisciplinary team to oversee integrating PsyMetRiC into clinical practice at CAMH.