View From the Legislature

I had the honour of attending the Grand Opening of the Seven Oaks Hospital Chronic Disease Innovation Centre last week, with my colleague Nic Curry, MLA for Kildonan.

The Chronic Disease Innovation Centre (CDIC) is unique and well positioned to bring academic research together with business innovators to create and commercialize new devices and processes that can be good for our economy. Built with private funds from local donors and companies who understand the importance of the work here, this model of drawing private funding and investment to sustain research and the development of new devices and discoveries is in itself innovative.

Manitoba has the highest rates of kidney disease and diabetes across Canada. Over 50% of Manitobans live with a chronic disease and chronic diseases have a strong impact on our healthcare system. The CDIC has employed a team with diverse interests. Already, within a year’s time the team has made several impressive accomplishments that have received global attention and adoption such as the Kidney Failure Risk Equation, which determines a patient’s risk of kidney failure in the next two or five years. It is my understanding that this creates better risk equations for other diseases. This is a key example of turning research to practice and I commend them for using evidence and innovation like this in healthcare.

We believe that these things can make healthcare more effective, better for patients and more cost effective. The CDIC also mentors graduate students and trains half a dozen medical students each summer. These medical students will graduate as physicians with a good understanding of research process.

Congratulations to the research team on their new home!