Ottawa Heart Institute aims to screen 1 million Canadians for heart disease

The Ottawa Heart Institute is embarking on a plan to help screen a million people for signs of heart disease. CTV’s Dave Charbonneau reports.

The Ottawa Heart Institute wants to screen one million people in Ottawa and across Canada for heart disease, as part of its five-year strategic plan to address the world’s leading cause of death.

The institute launched its “Your Heart. Your Institute. Our Future Together,” campaign on Tuesday, the 2025-2030 strategic plan that will focus on prevention, equitable access to timely care, and innovative treatments for cardiovascular disease.

One part of the plan is the “One Million Canadian Hearts” initiative, which aims to screen one million people for cardiovascular risk factors. The campaign will start in Ottawa and grow to a national effort.

“By detecting risks early and intervening swiftly, the initiative seeks to save lives and generate robust data that will guide future research and care improvements,” the Ottawa Heart Institute said in a statement.

“Plans to deliver the program in partnership with primary care providers and community organizations are already underway, ensuring accessibility and equity.”

The Ottawa Heart Institute says early detection saves lives by identifying and addressing risk factors early before heart disease progresses.

The institute uses a mobile unit to do valve screenings in the community.

“The screening we would do with one million hearts is a little more intensive, but we plan to use that same model to go out into the community,” Bonnie Bowes, vice-president and chief nursing officer at the Ottawa Heart Institute, told CTV News Ottawa.

“We can also go to places of work or malls or events and screen there. We’ve done a little bit of work with valve screening, but this is the first time we’ve done comprehensive risk screening in the public.”

The chief scientific officer at the Ottawa Heart Institute says early screening will provide early intervention to prevent heart disease and assist research.

“We know that people who have heart disease, often, it goes undetected for a very long time, so we need information about those risk factors in order to make earlier decisions and that’s going to help use intervene and prevent, hopefully, heart disease from ever developing,” Katey Rayner told CTV News Ottawa.

“To do that, we need to have that information; we need to collect that data and we just don’t. We usually only know someone has heart disease when they already have it.”

Rayner says the Heart Institute “won’t stop” until they screen one million Canadians for heart disease.

The “Your Heart. Your Institute. Our Future Together” campaign will also expand tele-cardiac critical care, growing the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Centre and launching a heart health education centre to support training, public education and workforce development.

“For nearly five decades, we have set the standard for excellence in cardiac care by driving innovation, delivering transformative treatments and leading the fight against cardiovascular disease,” Rob Beanlands, president and CEO of the Ottawa Heart Institute, said in a statement.

“Our 2025–2030 strategic plan is a declaration of our dedication to pushing boundaries, embracing collaboration and harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology and AI to address the evolving needs of patients, while never losing the human touch.”

The Ottawa Heart Institute will unveil more details in the next few months about how it will screen one million people for heart disease.

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Dave Charbonneau