Congratulations to Drs. Heather Ross and Joseph Cafazzo—the winners of UHN's 19th annual Inventor of the Year Award.
The researchers are being recognized for the development and commercialization of the Medly platform, a fit-in-your pocket companion for heart care powered by software and artificial intelligence. Medly is also the basis of the UHN spin-off venture Medly Therapeutics, which is poised to bring heart care benefits to patients around the world.
According to Dr. Brad Wouters, Executive Vice President of Science and Research at UHN, “Their pioneering digital health innovations are changing the face of heart health for patients nationwide. Commercialization of the Medly platform is an example of translating world-class research into precision medicine—for the benefit of cardiac patients, as well as for individuals living with other chronic diseases.”
Nearly one million Canadians are living with heart failure and one-in-five people over the age of 40 will experience the condition. Challenges in treating heart failure include the difficulty of properly timing treatment; a lack of real-time, actionable patient data; and limited patient involvement along the journey to better health.
To address these challenges, Drs. Ross and Cafazzo devised Medly to be an innovative digital self-management solution with 24/7 monitoring technology, making it accessible and easy to use for patients wherever they might be. The Medly technology has proven to be clinically effective at UHN and other sites, supporting more than 800 patients with chronic heart failure at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. The app has also led to a 50% reduction in heart failure-related hospitalizations and a 24% reduction in other hospitalizations, with patients reporting greater self-management support, confidence and peace of mind, and a better relationship with their care team.
“In delivering health care today, we are often still overly focused on treating patients once they become acutely ill and end up in hospital,” says Dr. Ross. “Leveraging the incredible power of big data, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, Medly provides a more proactive, scalable and affordable solution to manage the epidemic of heart failure—and research is continually ongoing to enhance the app. Working with the team at Commercialization at UHN to scale Medly nationally and beyond will enable this technology to reach more patients than ever before,” she says.
The Inventor of the Year award is sponsored by Commercialization at UHN. Annually the award recognizes an individual or team whose invention has made a substantial and noteworthy commercialization contribution that is leading to A Healthier World. The development of Medly would not be possible without contributions from members of TeamUHN and the University of Toronto, including Emily Seto, Shumit Saha, Bo Wang, Michael McDonald, Amika Shah, Kenneth R Chapman, Philip Segal, as well as the UHN Centre for Digital Therapeutics, the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre and Healthcare Human Factors. Drs. Ross and Cafazzo are also grateful for the vast philanthropic support from the UHN Foundation through various donors, including the Rogers Foundation, the Peter and Melanie Munk Charitable Foundation and the Greg and Henry Wolfond families.
Link to full story: UHN.ca