About 350,000 Canadians are diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) each year, meaning that same number of Canadians have a three to five times higher risk of suffering a stroke or heart failure.

Strokes caused by AF have a 50% higher mortality rate at one year, and significant disability, than strokes caused by other factors.

There are now drug treatments in place that help prevent strokes in patients with AF. The greater issue at hand is, how many AF patients and their doctors know aboutit? And how many of them know of the other forms of treatment for AF?

There are major gaps in treatment, initiation, uptake and adherence when it comes to atrial fibrillation.

Dr. Sandhu along with co-investigator Dr. Padma Kaul, a cardiologist at the Maz, are moving towards developing new, innovative strategies for increasing the awareness of AF in the general public, possibly in the form of an app, and integrating their research into the domain of Alberta Health Services through Connect Care, the central access point for patient information, common clinical practices and best healthcare practices.

They are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze the billion data points we have to develop models for all the different audiences we’re communicating with – the clinicians, the policy makers and of course, the patients.