A new Alberta-wide research team is making is easier for physicians to identify and treat those most at risk of kidney failure, heart attacks, hospitalization and death while also helping health care policy makers to better understand disease management.
The Interdisciplinary Chronic Disease Collaboration was created by physicians Brenda Hemmelgarn, Braden Manns and Marcello Tonelli — all kidney specialists — to work with key leaders at Alberta Health and Wellness and Alberta Health Services.
The group’s research targets high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney and vascular disease, all of which Tonelli called the “quiet epidemic of our time.”
“All of these diseases are major drivers of high burden of illness for patients, high health care costs and they are a source of problems for decision-makers who each day need to make choices about how Albertans and other Canadians are going to receive health care,” he said during a press conference at the University of Alberta Tuesday.
Last year the group received a $5-million, five-year grant from Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions.
“What’s novel about our approach is that, from the start, we sit down with decision-makers, we include them in the research team and we discuss what is the information you need to make good choices and to make good decisions,” said Tonelli.
He said the collaboration between health care workers, policy makers and government will better ensure that research findings can be of immediate benefit to both the health care system and the people in it.
Most recently, the group published a series of articles on how to help doctors identify people most at risk of kidney failure, heart attacks, hospitalization and death.
Researchers found that the current blood test used to screen for kidney disease is not the most effective tool for diagnosis.
They instead recommended doctors use a simple urine test alongside the standard blood test to identify people at the greatest risk of kidney failure.
The group has also published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine where they argue that an over-the-counter chewable calcium tablet like Tums was just as effective to treat high phosphate levels in those with kidney disease as a more expensive prescription medication.
“We have a lot of unanswered questions so this team is very focussed on trying to answer the questions that we, as leaders in the health system have, and to bring evidence to the work that we’re trying to do,” AHS senior vice-president Deb Gordon, also on the collaboration team, told the Gazette on Monday.
“In the absence of that evidence then senior leaders are often faced with having to use less than ideal information in order to answer complex questions,” she said.
The team is also examining the health care services received by people in remote communities. Gordon said this particular research will help AHS to improve care for patients living far from urban centres.
“They can actually go out and do a research project that actually looks at what is actually happening with the health status of the people in those various communities and are we actually meeting the needs of those patients or their families in the care that we’re providing?” Gordon said.
“They bring to life the evidence that allows us to make good management decisions.”
The collaboration team includes 26 members, including scientists, physicians and health policy makers from the universities of Alberta and Calgary, Queen’s University, and the University of Toronto, University of Aberdeen, AHS, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, and Statistics Canada.
