Part of the DePPaRT study involves the collection and electronic download of continuous waveform data from patients who undergo withdrawal of life sustaining therapy in the intensive care unit. This is a lot of data, and collecting, cleaning, viewing, and analyzing it will take some hard work and dedication. For the pilot study we collected waveform data by printing it out from hospital monitors. For the DePPaRT study, we’re collaborating with the Dynamical Analysis Laboratory (DAL) to go paperless. Want to know how? Click here to read more about the DePPaRT waveform viewer.  

Sonny Dhanani, the multi-site principal investigator for the DePPaRT study, presented to the group at the annual Canadian National Transplant Research Program (CNTRP) meeting this week at  Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec. For the first time ever, the meeting was held in conjunction with the Spring meeting of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (CCCTG). The audience of critical care physicians, organ donation and transplant researchers, transplant patients, and health and policy researchers was very receptive and had some great input towards our proposals of including a special neurological monitoring sub-study. The DePPaRT study team had a great time at the meeting - I had the chance to meet with investigators and coordinators from across the country who will be invaluable in helping us get the study done. We also got to see an emotional and memorable talk by double lung transplant patient Hélène Campbell, who reminded us all of the reasons we continue to work towards the improvement of organ donation and access to donation in Canada.


We'd like to thank the organizers and the chairs of the CNTRP and the CCCTG for putting together a great Spring meeting! 

In other news: last Friday our superstar coordinators at the Ottawa Hospital General site enrolled their third patient, making them the highest enrollers so far and bringing the total number of patients enrolled to 6. We also have news that the site at the Montreal General Hospital and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto have now finalized contracts negotiations and should be starting up soon.