UOIT applying cloud-based Big Data analytics to improve patient care

OSHAWA, ONTARIO – Big Data analytics have the potential to be a game-changer in how Ontario patients and families receive clinical health-care services. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) will contribute its Big Data expertise to a new Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project announced July 21 by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

The university will collaborate with Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, Ontario, York University and IBM Canada in this $34.5 million health informatics research program.

The university’s $3 million component of the Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project consists of the Artemis Big Data Platform, led by Carolyn McGregor AM, PhD, UOIT’s Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics. Artemis (named after the Greek goddess of childbearing) supports advanced clinical decision making for premature infants facing life-threatening complications. The Artemis platform enables a multidimensional approach for the analysis of very complex and high-speed patient-sensor data, in addition to other traditional clinical data.

Through the Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project, the university will test, validate and demonstrate proof of concept for Artemis, addressing such factors as cloud hosting, software licensing, speed-to-market, long-term sustainability and data confidentiality.

Artemis has a very high commercial potential for adoption in hospitals and in developed countries around the world. Artemis technology may ultimately achieve health-care cost reductions through disease prevention, avoidance of unnecessary drug use, and decrease in hospital length of stay.

UOIT anticipates its contributions will lead to the development and/or expansion of two health-related startup companies.

Quotes

“In a neonatal intensive care unit, an infant might have more than 7,000 heartbeats, 2,000 breaths and 3,600 blood oxygen saturations in just one hour. But even in that specialized environment, today’s medical devices provide physicians with information that is too voluminous and too detailed for the human mind to process without significant support. Through Artemis, Big Data analytics can monitor multiple real-time vital signs 24/7, detect subtle changes in a patient’s condition and be predictive of major health events.”

-Carolyn McGregor, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

“As one of Canada’s newest research universities, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s participation in the Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project demonstrates the university’s depth of research expertise in data analytics, health informatics and IT security. The university will assist in the development and application of transformative cloud-based solutions to improve the health of Canadians, and support the market introduction of new technologies.”

-Michael Owen, PhD, Vice-President, Research, Innovation and International, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

About the Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project

The Health Ecosphere Pipeline Project features 31 academic, not-for-profit and private partners, including the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.  The Health Ecosphere is a component of a larger project, valued at $34.5 million (with $15 million coming from FedDev Ontario), being led by York University and its partners Southlake Regional Health Centre and the University Health Network.  The project will support the creation of personalized health care technologies to help patients manage chronic disease. The project will lead to the development and commercialization of up to 37 health technologies and services over a span of three years.

Media contacts:

Patricia Pickett
Communications and Marketing
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
905.721.8668 ext. 6710
patricia.pickett@uoit.ca