Transform HF
Digital Innovation for Heart Failure CareTRANSFORM HF aims to build, support, and seed fund a community of engineers, scientists and clinicians who will work in tandem with Indigenous health experts and patients to develop point-of-care diagnostics, wearables, and AI technologies to monitor and proactively treat people with heart failure in their homes – and empower them to be more active in their own care.
750,000
Canadians are living with heart failure
7
Days in hospital on average per visit
100,000
New cases are diagnosed each year
70,000
Canadians hospitalized per year
Heart Failure in Canada
Few chronic conditions carry as great a burden as heart failure. Yet its care in Canada is fragmented, low-tech and reactive, with glaring inequities in access, quality of care and patient outcomes. Through collaboration, integration and innovation, our diverse team will dramatically alter the management and trajectory of people with heart failure, bringing new innovations into clinical practice, and improving access to equitable high-quality care.
Together, we will break the barriers faced by Indigenous people and underserved communities. And improve care for all.
Featured News
Designing for Equity
TRANSFORM HF has been awarded a $1.65 million 6-year NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience grant to train the next generation of digital health innovators to design for equity!
Translating Cardiovascular Remote Diagnostic and Monitoring Technologies for Equitable Healthcare, or CaRDM Eq, will be delivered by a multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi.
Together with this diverse team and 30+ collaborators, we will ensure the next innovations in digital health have equity at their core – from ideation, to design, to implementation.
funded research
Playing the Future of Digital Health by Ear
When it comes to digital innovation, Alex Mariakakis and his team are all ears! Meet our 2023 Seed Grant recipient, who’s aiming to make blood pressure monitoring more accessible using earbuds.
Earbuds have the potential to remove the cost of blood pressure cuffs, increase the ease of at-home monitoring, and could even out-perform smartwatches! Alex views earbuds as one of the next big platforms – not just for blood pressure monitoring, but for digital health in general.
Featured Event
TRANSFORM HF Spring Network Event
Join us for a TechEquity themed panel discussion featuring local leaders and an Innovation Pitch Competition for $10K PLUS network with our community of clinicians, researchers, trainees, people with lived experience, and industry partners!
TRANSFORM HF Meetings
Thank you to those who joined us in December for an afternoon full of learning, collaborating, and networking. If you weren’t able to join us, here’s what you can expect at future TRANSFORM HF meetings!
Stay up to date on future TRANSFORM HF events by subscribing to our newsletter.
Featured Research
U of T Groundbreakers
Our University of Toronto Groundbreakers episode is live! Hear from Dr. Heather Ross, Amika Shah, and Dr. Dan Franklin to learn about some of the important work we are supporting.
Groundbreakers is a multimedia series that features U of T research superstars from the Institutional Strategic Initiatives.
Acknowledgement of Territory
We acknowledge the traditional territories of the Mississauga of the New Credit First Nation, Anishnawbe, Wendat, Huron, and Haudenosaunee Indigenous Peoples on which our partner institutions stand.
The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We would also like to pay our respects to all our ancestors and to our present Elders.