Digital Health
Digital Health Researchers
The department of Surgery at McGill University has a large a robust focus on Digital Health Innovation. Through the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre’s Clinical Innovation Platform, Digital Health tools development and research is centralized.
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg
Surgeon-Scientist-InnovatorDr. Lawrence Rosenberg
Surgeon-Scientist-Innovator
Domain
Cell biology
Links
Biography
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg is President and CEO of the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal (West-Central Montreal Health).
Before assuming this position on April 1, 2015, Dr. Rosenberg had served since 2013 as Executive Director of the Jewish General Hospital (JGH). After joining the hospital in 2007, he spent six years as the Chief of Surgical Services.
Dr. Rosenberg is Professor of Surgery and Medicine at McGill University, where he earned a Master of Science degree and a doctorate in experimental surgery. He also completed post doctoral studies and a surgical fellowship in transplantation at the University of Michigan, and went on to earn a Master of Engineering degree—the equivalent of an MBA for scientists and engineers—from the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Jeffery Barkun
Surgeon-InnovatorDr. Jeffery Barkun
Surgeon-Innovator
Domain
Digital Biomarkers
Links
Biography
Jeffrey Barkun, MD, MSc. FRCSC, is a liver transplant and hepatobiliary surgery specialist at the McGill University Health Centre. He holds a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and bio-statistics. In addition, Mr. Barkun is a full professor at McGill University in the department of surgery and has been involved in the development of a computerized clinical file for the McGill University Health Centre since 2001 where he has also been serving as Clinical Director of technological transition since 2008.
Dr. Edward Harvey
Surgeon-Scientist-InnovatorDr. Edward Harvey
Surgeon-Scientist-Innovator
Domain
Sensor Development and Digital Diagnostics
Links
Biography
Dr Harvey, MD MSc FRCSC, is a full professor of surgery. He has held several prominent positions including president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, editor in Chief of the Canadian Journal of Surgery, and head of basic science at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association. His research encompasses biosensors, evaluation of novel hardware and surgical approaches to expedite fracture repair, and innovation and business models in surgical discovery.
Dr. Liane Feldman
Surgeon-ScientistDr. Liane Feldman
Surgeon-Scientist
Domain
Digitally-Enhanced Surgical Quality
Links
Biography
Dr Liane Feldman is the Edward W. Archibald Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at McGill University and Surgeon-in-chief at the McGill University Health Centre. Her patient-centred research program focuses on improving outcomes of abdominal surgery. This includes technology-enabled assessment and improvement of operating room performance, optimization of perioperative care processes, and measurement of patient-centred outcomes during surgical recovery.
Dr. Dan Poenaru
Surgeon-ScientistDr. Dan Poenaru
Surgeon-Scientist
Domain
AI Predictive Models, VR Simulation, Telemedicine
Links
Biography
Dr. Poenaru is a professor of paediatric surgery and researcher at the Montréal Children’s Hospital and McGill University. He has earned Masters degrees in both Health Professions Education and International Development, and a doctorate in Health Strategy & Management. He is a FRQS- and CIHR-funded investigator in patient-centred surgical care, head of the McGill CommiSur Lab, director of the Jean-Martin Laberge Fellowship in Global Pediatric Surgery and founding member of the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS). He has published over 140 scientific papers and several book chapters, and supervises multiple Masters’ and PhD students from Canada and across the world. His research in digital health includes use of ML models for clinical predictive tools in acute appendicitis, NLP in the EHR and for abstract mining, AI-based precision communication patient-centred apps, and VR for trauma simulation training.
Prof. Thomas Fevens
ScientistProf. Thomas Fevens
Scientist
Domain
Medical AI
Links
Biography
Dr. Fevens is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Computer Science and Software Engineering, at Concordia University, and an Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Surgery, at McGill. While at Queen’s University, Dr. Fevens obtained an MSc and a PhD in Computing and Information Science in 1999, specializing in Numerical Analysis and Computational Geometry, respectively, also having a BSc and an MSc in Physics from Queen’s. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill from 2000 to 2001 in the School of Computer Science. An expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep Learning and Medical Imaging, he has published articles in top venues such as ICCV, MICCAI, and IEEE TMI on Computer-Aided Breast Cancer Malignancy Classification, Clinical Image Segmentation, and Deep Learning for Medical Imagery. His areas of research also include Biometrics Analysis, Assistive Technology, and Computer Networks.
Dr. Kevin Lachapelle
Surgeon-ScientistDr. Kevin Lachapelle
Surgeon-Scientist
Domain
Predictive imaging
Links
Biography
Dr Lachapelle is Vice Chair of Surgery ( Education ) and Cardiac Surgeon at the MUHC where his practice is focused on Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm pathology , diagnosis, and treatment. His research is focused on risk prediction using phenotypes, genotype, and imaging in patients with aortic pathology. He has funding from Doggone Foundation for a multicentre study termed the Aneurysm Risk Prediction Program ( ARAP ).
Prof. Julio Fiore
ScientistProf. Julio Fiore
Scientist
Domain
Perioperative data science
Links
Biography
Dr Fiore’s research focuses on developing strategies to measure postoperative recovery from the perspective of patients, assessing the comparative effectiveness of interventions aimed to improve recovery, and reducing harms associated with surgery and perioperative care interventions. His research program capitalizes on the use of cutting-edge digital platforms to assess patient-reported outcomes via item-response theory and computer adaptive testing.
Dr. Lawrence Lee
Surgeon-Scientist-InnovatorDr. Lawrence Lee
Surgeon-Scientist-Innovator
Domain
AI supported surgical outcomes
Links
Biography
Dr. Lee’s research interests include health technology assessment and comparative effectiveness research for surgical technologies and innovations, with emphasis on the practice of colorectal surgery. Other areas of research include perioperative assessment, and functional and patient-reported outcomes after major abdominal surgery. In particular, Dr. Lee specializes in advanced minimally invasive and endoluminal approaches to the treatment of colorectal disease using flexible endoscopy, transanal endoscopic surgery, and Transanal Total Mesorectal Excision (TA-TME).
Dr. Renzo Cecere
Surgeon-Scientist-InnovatorDr. Renzo Cecere
Surgeon-Scientist-Innovator
Domain
Digital cardiac rehab
Links
Biography
Dr. Cecere works to develop a post coronary bypass surgery follow-up interactive program on Alexa to improve patient quality of life. The program will be able to offer a daily patient health assessment which will provide for a faster and more accurate follow-up. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in digital health tools can allocate the use of health resources where it is needed most and improve medical decision-making. The use of an intelligent triage system might be able to handle uncertainty and gaps in knowledge, post-surgery follow-up of a patient. This will personalize health assessment services to meet patient needs post-surgery.
Prof. Jake Barralet
ScientistProf. Jake Barralet
Scientist
Domain
Medtech innovation
Links
Biography
Dr Barralet is a materials scientist graduate who specializes in biomaterials. After a postdoctoral position with Professor Aoki at Tokyo Medical and Dental University he worked at Smith and Nephew Group Research Centre, York, UK developing bone graft and casting materials. At the University of Birmingham UK he progressed research themes in tissue engineering and bone grafts in collaboration with biologist and clinical co-workers. He specialises in Bioceramics in particular low temperature syntheses of nanocrystalline and amorphous inorganics, cold setting materials (cements) and precipitation to create new or improved materials or devices for tissue repair or delivery. Work on tissue engineering has focussed on new ways to build 3D structures using microscaffolds as building blocks for macroscale constructs. In addition calcium cross linked alginate has been evaluated as a tissue engineering scaffold. He has been awarded a Canada Research Chair in Osteoinductive Biomaterials and will work on this topic as well as extending prior work to include biomineralisation.
Dr. Kosar Khwaja
Surgeon-Scientist-InnovatorDr. Kosar Khwaja
Surgeon-Scientist-Innovator
Domain
Digital biomarkers
Links
Biography
Dr. Khwaja is the Director of Acute Care Surgery at the Montreal General Hospital and Associate Director, Trauma Program Critical Care Medicine.
Dr. Amir Hooshiar
ScientistDr. Amir Hooshiar
Scientist
Domain
Surgical robotics
Links
Biography
Dr. Amir Hooshiar joined the Department of Surgery as a Postdoctoral Researcher. His doctoral research was on haptics-enabled robot-assisted surgical systems for cardiovascular intervention. He was an NSERC Vanier Scholar during his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Concordia University and received the 2018 NSERC Gilles-Brassard Doctoral Prize for Interdisciplinary Research. Amir is the department’s first surgical robotics scientist and works toward establishing the Surgical Robotics Centre (SRC). His expertise is in the design, modeling, and control of surgical robots. He aims to conduct interdisciplinary research on next-gen (semi-)autonomous surgical robots for endoscopic, endoluminal, and percutaneous procedures. Amir hopes to place the SRC among the top surgical robotics centers in North America in collaboration with surgeons, clinical staff, science and engineering faculty members, and MedTech partners.
Dr. Shannon Fraser
Surgeon-ScientistDr. Shannon Fraser
Surgeon-Scientist
Domain
Digital perioperative
Links
Biography
Dr. Shannon Fraser is the Chief of General Surgery at the Jewish General Hospital, as well as the Medical Director of the C4: Command Center at the CIUSSS CODI. Her experience lies in triad leadership and governance structure development, currently being applied for Digital Health Initiatives such as the C4: Command Center and patient flow. Her passion is optimization of patient care: championing the introduction of NSQIP at the LGH, while she was concomitantly chief of surgery (2013-17), as the first community hospital in Quebec to participate. Currently she is developing digital quality performance dashboards for patient flow, director report cards, digital tool development for peri-operative assessments, as well as multidisciplinary/multi-site patient order set development and deployment.
Digital Health Start-Ups
SensiaDx
SensiaDx (SDx) is a medical device start-up focused on a real time and point of care approach for...
SensiaDx
About
SensiaDx (SDx) is a medical device start-up focused on a real time and point of care approach for diagnosing bacterial infections. It has designed and developed a patented technology using electrochemistry to detect and quantify specific bacteria and other components. The team behind SDx has a track record in the entire gamut of idea to market pipeline needed to allow commercialization of medical devices. While bacterial infection detection will be SensiaDx’s initial focus, the company expects to leverage its medical device expertise in capitalizing on other opportunities as they arise. Early detection of infectious diseases plays a crucial role in all treatment and prevention strategies. Rapid and accurate identification of the underlying agent (the bacterium) using diagnostic testing is essential to select the correct control measure. By reducing the time of identification, we can decrease the probability of negative outcome for the patient. Worldwide, many infections remain undetected. Due to poor diagnostic tools, infection is often undiagnosed and therefore untreated, or diagnosed at the late stage when treatment becomes less effective. A quick and affordable device could significantly help.
CanaNose
Objective: To develop a smaller, more sensitive, and capable trace gas sensor with applications in…
CanaNose
Objective
To develop a smaller, more sensitive, and capable trace gas sensor with applications in healthcare, defence, and environmental monitoring.
Core Expertise
- MEMS Design
- MEMS Fabrication
- MEMS Simulation
- Product Development
We have developed a MEMS-based Photoacoustic device for this process.
Technological Advances
- Improved sensitivity resulting from a proprietary high-quality factor MEMS resonator.
- Miniaturization using micro-fabrication.
- Detection of multiple gases simultaneously.
- Improved robustness resulting from use of on-chip components
- Reduced cost from compatibility with mass-fabrication techniques.
Quartz enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS), is one of the promising optical detection techniques because it offers high detection sensitivity with a compact and cost-effective acoustic detection module.
Stathera Inc.
Stathera is transforming the 100-year-old quartz-based timing market to MEMS-based timing…
Stathera Inc.
About
Stathera is transforming the 100-year-old quartz-based timing market to MEMS-based timing with our breakthrough innovation in MEMS timing technology.We are using ingenuity to break paradigms, lowering power while increasing performance. Through our team, innovation in MEMS Timing, and commitment to excellence, we will speed up the IoT revolution, and unlock disruptive advantages for IoT, Wearables, Smartphones, and a variety of other applications. But the transformation won’t stop there. With our breakthrough MEMS technology, we’ll also unlock an unimaginable variety of new features and applications for electronic devices that benefit from low-power, and ultra-stable timing for synchronous system control and communication. We believe that ultra-stable, accurate MEMS timing is the key for decentralized synchronization in a robust distributed network, and Stathera will hold the key.
The company’s MEMS-based timing solutions feature ultra-stable, low jitter and temperature compensated oscillators. NXTSENS capitalized on ultra-clean vacuum packaging capability to develop silicon MEMS resonators with extremely high-quality factor, reaching 3.24 million at a resonance frequency of 6.89 MHz. The initial prototypes have the highest reported performance among wafer-level vacuum packaged resonators, yielding a frequency-quality factor product of 2.23e13. The company is working on an approach that will enable further performance improvements. The smallest oscillators measure just 1 x 1 mm, 10x smaller than legacy quartz-based timing solutions.
MY01
Originally called MYOVUE – the company has been renamed – MY01 (MY oh-one) capitalizes on…
MY01
About
Originally called MYOVUE – the company has been renamed – MY01 (MY oh-one) capitalizes on clinically proven sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing Acute Compartment Syndrome (ACS).
Real-time, accurate muscle pressure measurement allows users to take timely action.
The aim is to reduce the incidence of missed compartment syndrome and diminish delays that would potentially lead to significant disability. Despite awareness, delayed diagnosis and treatment continues to occur in modern orthopaedic practice. As noted in many studies, once a diagnosis has been made, immediate fasciotomy is necessary to provide the best chance for a favourable clinical result. Therefore, there is a need for improved devices in order to obtain an early and reliable diagnosis.
The MY01 device is designed to fill that market need.
The device is currently undergoing animal trials after succeeding in ex-vivo and laboratory validation studies. Pilot animal studies have shown successful validation and full capability for clinical trial is expected. MY01 has begun a controlled clinical roll out in select Canadian sites.
The MY01 device aims to become the Gold Standard for ACS diagnosis by delivering a highly accurate solution that expedites patient care with easy point of injury application and remote tracking. Integral advantages include the patent pending wireless sensor micro technology and patent pending needle delivery system. MY01 has the only device technically easy to use for single time-point measurements or for continuous monitoring. The data is displayed in real time directly on screen at the patient as well as transmitted wirelessly to the clinician’s mobile device. A HIPAA compliant cloud-based system helps synchronize and transmits the data to other physicians allowing remote access to the patient’s disease processes as it evolves.
NXTSens Inc.
NXTSENS is a performance leading fabless semiconductor company focused on leveraging its expertise…
NXTSens Inc.
About
NXTSENS is a performance leading fabless semiconductor company focused on leveraging its expertise and proprietary designs to empower tailored micro technology. The company is currently ranked among the World’s top 60 emerging silicon companies and has demonstrated expertise in medical diagnostic equipment. McGill professors – Vamsy Chodavarapu and Ed Harvey – co-founded the company in January 2015 with 2 students – Charles Allan and George Xereas- that shared a belief in the groundbreaking potential of tailored micro technology solutions. Our differentiated approach delivers the best possible solution by bridging the gap between technology and medicine. NXTSens has developed IP in pressure sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes and resonators. The company’s MEMS-based timing solutions feature ultra-stable, low jitter and temperature compensated oscillators. Teledyne DALSA Semi is the only pure-play MEMS foundry in the world capable of ultra-clean wafer-level vacuum encapsulation packaging, per the company. NXTSENS capitalized on this ultra-clean vacuum packaging capability to develop silicon MEMS resonators with extremely high-quality factor, reaching 3.24 million at a resonance frequency of 6.89 MHz. The initial prototypes have the highest reported performance among wafer-level vacuum packaged resonators, yielding a frequency-quality factor product of 2.23e13. The company is working on a resonator level temperature compensation approach that will enable further performance improvements. The smallest oscillators measure just 1 x 1 mm, 10x smaller than legacy quartz-based timing solutions. Our efforts have led to the development of our initial product, an accurate diagnostic tool for monitoring traumatic injuries. NXTSENS uses this device to monitor muscle condition post trauma and diagnose Acute Compartment Syndrome (ACS).