Transform HF

Digital Innovation for Heart Failure Care

TRANSFORM 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.

About UsOur Research
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750,000

Canadians are living with heart failure

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7

Days in hospital on average per visit

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100,000

New cases are diagnosed each year

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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.

FUNDING COMPETITION

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Seed Grant Competition

TRANSFORM HF’s Seed Grant Competition is now open, and it’s bigger and better than ever!

These grants are meant to encourage, foster, and support members of our community working collaboratively on research and project proposals that align with our initiative’s goals and approaches.  

For the first time, one $70,000 grant is available, renewable for a second year upon successful completion of Y1 deliverables. That’s a total value of up to $140,000 over two years.

Teams led by one co-PI from within U of T/TAHSN and one co-PI from outside U of T/TAHSN are encouraged to apply by Monday, December 18th!

FEATURED TRAINING

Is it time for an entrepreneurship vibe check?

Megh Rathod is a PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. He’s passionate about advancing medicine and quality of care through device innovation, and is currently working on developing a skin-tone invariant pulse oximeter in the form of a wearable.

Megh wanted to explore career paths and test his perceptions of entrepreneurship, so he applied to ECHO Discovery – a foundational education program that explores ideation, research translation, and entrepreneurship for cardiovascular health.

Hear about Megh’s experience and learn how you too can dip your toes into the waters of entrepreneurship by participating in ECHO Discovery! Applications will be accepted until Monday, November 27.

Megh Rathod, UofT Biomedical Engineering grad student, at his desk.

Featured News

Can managing heart failure be as easy as sleeping?

Dr. Isaac Chang and his team are developing a digital health technology called Smart Tile that can monitor a patient’s heart function while they sleep. Innovations like this are key for empowering people living with heart failure to manage their own care and stay out of hospital.

Dr. Chang believes that Smart Tile provides an accurate, unobtrusive, and economical solution to heart failure monitoring – and so did the judging panel at our Spring Network Event’s pitch competition! Dr. Chang and his team were awarded first place and a $12,750 Collaboration Starter Grant.

MOVING THE NEEDLE

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.