Grant: Foundation Grant

<html> <body> <p> <strong>1. Overarching Direction of the Research Program:</strong> Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common and leads to prolonged hospitalization, poor outcomes, and high costs. Knowledge is available about modifiable risk factors, prevention strategies, and management approaches for AKI. However, translation into real-world improvements in care and outcomes has been limited. Evidence-to-practice gaps exist in large part due to a lack of awareness of patients at risk, delayed recognition following onset, and highly variable use of prevention and management strategies for AKI.&nbsp;My research program addresses these challenges through two priority research initiatives developed with stakeholders. The overarching direction of the research program is to derive and validate better prediction and decision support strategies and test whether they help care providers; A) identify patients at high risk and apply AKI prevention strategies, and B) improve early case finding and appropriate management following the development of AKI. Over the next 5 years,&nbsp;I will develop, implement, and test the impact of these strategies&nbsp;for AKI through a series of related projects that build on established expertise and stakeholder engagement, using a unique infrastructure that links hospital clinical informatics systems to laboratory, administrative, and electronic health records.<br> </p> <p> <strong>2. Major Research Initiatives:</strong> <br> <strong><em>A. Risk Prediction and AKI Prevention -</em></strong> Objectives:To derive, validate, and assess the clinical impact of risk prediction tools for AKI in patients undergoing surgery and imaging procedures.</p> <p> <strong><em>B. Real-time Alerts and Decision Support for AKI Management</em></strong> - Objectives: To develop, implement, and evaluate automated early AKI alerts and clinical decision support to guide initial management of AKI in hospital.<br> </p> <p> <strong>3. How Results will Advance Knowledge:</strong> The implementation of these tools in real-time through electronic platforms will immediately allow care providers to put knowledge into action to improve care for AKI. In the long-term, the program will determine the impact of these strategies on the quality of care and outcomes of AKI. This work will help determine the most appropriate methods for influencing practice changes within hospitals and across diverse sets of clinicians who care for patients with AKI. Although this research program focuses on AKI as the target condition, the work will be broadly generalizable&nbsp;and inform pragmatic approaches for translating knowledge from guidelines into strategies that make it easier to practice evidence-based care with a high degree of reliability.</p> <p> <strong>4.&nbsp;Core Expertise Assembled:</strong> I am a CIHR New Investigator&nbsp;and have led past research&nbsp;initiatives&nbsp;for&nbsp;AKI&nbsp;that position me to lead this program. I have&nbsp;a&nbsp;strong network of program experts who will provide broad methodological expertise. I have also established important links to national and international&nbsp;knowledge users and decision makers, who will ensure the outputs of the work achieve maximal clinical impact across health systems.<br> </p> <p> <strong>5. Mentoring and Training:&nbsp;</strong>My research program provides interdisciplinary&nbsp;training, collaboration,&nbsp;and mentorship. The academic positions of&nbsp;members provide rich opportunities for graduate students in epidemiology and health services research to undertake thesis projects within the program. Trainees will benefit through links to a comprehensive series of educational activities&nbsp;focusing on&nbsp;key areas of prediction modeling, clinical informatics, and&nbsp;implementation science.</p> </body> </html>