Our vision is to use routine data to transform observational and interventional research. We aim to do this by embedding research within the health system, reducing the burden of data collection, improving the efficiency of long-term follow-up, and ensuring that all patient groups are included and can therefore benefit from research findings.
The ICU environment provides the perfect opportunity to combine multiple high frequency data streams, but current clinical studies are restricted to intermittent, at most hourly, observations. By focusing on the most data-rich inpatient cohort, ICU Heart will demonstrate the potential of patient-centred real time data science in the NHS. This will drive wider innovation to improve care across the whole system. We are working across a multi-disciplinary team, incorporating clinicians, data scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and patient representatives. We recognise that there is a critical need within the project for people who understand both the clinical picture and data science to help teams work together, and we feel the team we have built is well equipped for this.
By integrating real-time healthcare data science into NHS systems, we aim to improve survival and quality of life of critically unwell patients. Ultimately, we are aiming to develop and deliver the systematic diagnosis, prediction and prevention of heart attacks for the first time in critically ill patients, not only saving lives, but also improving their quality of life. This programme will provide the infrastructure and analytical approaches for subsequent research using patient-centred real-time data science across ICU environments.