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New Clinical Research Unit (CRU) at Grey Nuns Hospital

Dr. Janek Senaratne, Principal Investigator

In the last one year, we have created the Grey Nuns Hospital ICU/CCU Clinical Research Unit in an effort to fully integrate inpatient and outpatient Critical Care and Cardiology trials into the day-to-day functioning as well as long-term vision and infrastructure of the Intensive Care Unit and Cardiac Care Unit of the Grey Nuns Hospital. This also aligns with the greater vision of the Department of Critical Care Medicine and the Division of Cardiology (University of Alberta) as well as Covenant Health and Alberta Health Services to be involved and integrated with global clinical research. Research is now fully integrated with the patient experience of all patients being admitted in the units as well as all patients followed in the Cardiovascular Sciences Outpatient programs such as Cardiac Rehabilitation, Heart Function Clinic, and Pacemaker and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Clinic. The program owes its success to the support of all members of the frontline clinical staff ranging from nurses, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, unit charge nurses, unit managers, and physicians along with dedicated research staff including our research coordinators. Furthermore, the program would not be possible without the support of Covenant Health, Covenant Legal, the Covenant Health Research Centre, and all levels of Operations. The program's first year success has been unprecedented with over 10 current ongoing clinical trials with over 100 patients randomized into various trials in the first year alone. The Grey Nuns Hospital is the national recruitment leader for 3 of these trials and is also in the global top 5 for two trials involving over 130 worldwide hospital sites. We hope to build on these successes with a vision of having full integration of the clinical and research experiences for both patients as a part of their clinical journey as well as all frontline staff as an avenue for academic development.  

Covenant Health would like to acknowledge that what we refer to as Alberta is the traditional ancestral territory of a diversity of Indigenous peoples and home to Treaty 6, 7, and 8. We honor the Blackfoot Confederacy – Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika, the Cree, Dene, Saulteaux, Nakota Sioux, Stoney Nakoda, the Tsuu T’ina Nation and the Métis People of Alberta. This includes the Métis Settlements and the Six Regions of the Métis Nation of Alberta within the historical Northwest Métis Homeland. We recognize and give thanks to the many First Nations, Métis and Inuit who have lived in and cared for these lands for generations, all who continue to grace these lands, and all future generations. We are grateful for the traditional Knowledge Keepers and Elders who are still with us today and those who have gone before us. We make this acknowledgement as an act of reconciliation and gratitude to those whose territory we reside on or are visiting.

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