The University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) (French: Institut de cardiologie de l'Université d'Ottawa (ICUO)) is Canada's largest cardiovascular health centre. It is located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It began as a department in The Ottawa Hospital, and since has evolved into Canada's only complete cardiac centre, encompassing prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, research, and education.^{[citation needed]}

UOHI cares for more than 100,000 cardiac patients each year, and patient satisfaction is among the highest in Ontario, averaging 98 percent.^[1] The Heart Institute is affiliated with the Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, specifically the Faculty of Medicine.

The institute also provides training to more than 100 physicians annually and runs an extensive cardiovascular research program, with 60 principal investigators and research funding of approximately $65 million a year.

UOHI was founded in 1976 by Dr. Wilbert Keon, with financial support from the Ontario Ministry of Education. Keon worked with numerous partners, including all of the hospitals in the region, the University of Ottawa, and the Ottawa Hospital Regional District Planning council, to ensure the vision of a world-renowned institute would unfold as planned. The first phase of the Heart Institute—the Cardiac Unit, as it was then known—officially opened on May 11, 1976.

UOHI is now the sole, independent provider of specialized cardiovascular care for the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, home to over 1 million people (9 percent of the population of Ontario), and serves more than 40 referral hospitals throughout the province.

In 2004, UOHI recruited Dr. Robert Roberts from Baylor College of Medicine to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer. Roberts, an internationally recognized investigator in the field of molecular genetics, was brought in to place a greater emphasis on research within the institute. Shortly afterwards, UOHI established the Ruddy Canadian Cardiovascular Genetics Centre, the first such centre in Canada and one of only a handful worldwide dedicated to cardiovascular genetics.

In April 2014, former Heart Institute Chief of Cardiac Surgery Dr. Thierry Mesana took over as the third President and CEO of UOHI.

The institute has been responsible for numerous ‘firsts’, including:

• First use of point of care genetic testing in clinical medicine as part of the RAPID GENE study.
• Ontario's first angioplasty
• The first use in Canada, and 11th in the world, of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart as a bridge to transplant
• A heart transplant on the youngest recipient in Canada (an 11-day-old infant)
• Canada's first cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) centre
• Discovery of a genetic mutation that causes one of the most common forms of heart disease—atrial fibrillation^[2]
• Identification of the first single-nucleotide polymorphism that increases susceptibility to heart disease regardless of other established risk factors^[3]
• A one-of-a-kind Canadian home tele-health monitoring program that cuts hospital readmission by 54 percent for heart failure patients
• A first multi-faceted Women's Heart Health Centre that will focus its programs on prevention and management services for women at risk of and diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

UOHI maintains a clinical staff of over 700, including physicians, nurses, technicians, and other health professionals. In addition to standard care, approximately 100 clinical trials are underway at the institute at any time.

Since 2004, a concerted effort to grow research funding at UOHI has resulted in a 300 percent increase in total grant awards. The Institute has more than 60 principal investigators and 175 research staff members whose work encompasses all aspects of cardiovascular medicine. Research programs include:

• Atherosclerosis, Genetics & Cell Biology
• Biomaterials and Regeneration
• Biomedical Engineering
• Cardiac Anesthesiology
• Cardiac Imaging
• Cardiac Prevention & Rehabilitation Research
• Cardiac Surgery Research
• Cardiology Research
• Cardiovascular Devices
• Cardiovascular Endocrinology
• Cardiovascular Genetics
• Cardiovascular Research Methods Centre
• Clinical Services Research
• Clinical Trials
• Hypertension

UOHI trains physicians, nurses, technologists, technicians, and other health professionals, as well as graduate students and post-doctoral students in the life and biomedical sciences. The Heart Institute also provides continuing education and best practice training for health care professionals and institutions, and develops patient education tools and programs to facilitate and support self-management of cardiovascular risk factors.

The institute is certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for residency and fellowship training in cardiac surgery, cardiology, and cardiac anesthesiology.

• Toronto General Hospital