Prof. Michelle Canavan

Bio:

As Professor of Older Adult Health under the Senior Academic Leadership Initiative at the University of Galway, Prof Canavan leads the academic programme on integrated care delivery, digitally connected health and interprofessional learning. As consultant geriatrician at University Hospital Galway, she implemented a successful orthogeriatric service while simultaneously leading a successful Sláintecare funding bid for the Galway Integrated Care for Older People Hub Pilot Project.

She has an interest in multimorbidity trajectories and the impact of frailty on delivery of sustainable clinical services and patient outcomes. As well as establishing clinical services, she has also set up governance structures around the services. She played a prominent role locally and nationally in advocating mainstreaming of the integrated care service through demonstration of improved patient outcomes leading to funding of three community teams and two front door frailty services. She led the development of an integrated governance system between Saolta University Health Care Group and Community Health Organisation 2 which has now been replicated by the wider ECC programme.

She has led development of a Special Interest Group in Integrated Care for the Irish Gerontological Society in 2023. She has led on service user engagement with recent national awards for presentations highlighting the patient experience of home supports and coordination and delivery of integrated care in the context of increasing frailty and multimorbidity. In her role as clinical lead for geriatric medicine at University Hospital Galway 2022-2024, Prof Canavan managed the geriatrician group representing geriatric medicine at directorate, regional and national levels. She has recently been appointed by the National Clinical Programme for Older People (NCPOP) to lead a subgroup for ICPOP consultants focused on developing pathways and the evidence base around community specialist teams in integrated care.

Prof Canavan has a strong academic record, including senior author publications in JAMA and NEJM. Her PhD focused on functional outcomes for older adults with cardiovascular disease and she has continued that theme of patient important research outcomes across her publications. She is co-principal investigator on several clinical trials (CONVINCE, COMPASS, NAVIGATE ESUS and STOOD) at the HRB CRF Galway, where she is an integral member of the Neurovascular Research Group. She has had research collaboration with an international research group COGWHEEL (epidemiological study on dementia) in conjunction with the Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Canada. She has also collaborated on a number of recently published papers from the INTERSTROKE STUDY. She is a member of the National Clinical Guideline Group for Stroke UK/Ireland published 2023 and is the first geriatrician on the European Society of Cardiology Hypertension Guideline Taskforce due for publication 2024.

From an education perspective she is a keen advocate of the role of geriatric medicine and integrated ways of working in undergraduate and postgraduate programs as well as developing interprofessional education within the university. She is leading the development of a Graduate Entry Medical Program at the University of Galway which is aiming to creating a rural pipeline of graduates to work in this region to address shortages in rural GP practices and general hospitals in the region.

Clinical Trials:

COMPASS, NAVIGATE ESUS, CONVINCE, STOOD

Top Five Publications

Sherlock L, Lee SF, Katsanos AH, Cukierman-Yaffe T, Canavan M, Joundi R, Sharma M, Shoamanesh A, Brayne C, Gerstein HC, O'Donnell MJ, Muniz-Terrera G, Yusuf S, Bosch J, Whiteley WN. Cognitive performance following stroke, transient ischaemic attack, myocardial infarction, and hospitalisation: an individual participant data meta-analysis of six randomised controlled trials. Lancet Healthy Longev. 2023 Dec;4(12):e665-e674. doi: 10.1016/S2666-7568(23)00207-6. PMID: 38042159.

Hughes, D., Judge, C., Murphy, R., Loughlin, E., Costello, M., Whiteley, W, Canavan, M. (2020). Association of Blood Pressure Lowering With Incident Dementia or Cognitive Impairment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA, 323(19), 1934-1944. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4249. 32427305

Hypertension and Cognitive Impairment: A Review of Mechanisms and Key Concepts. Canavan M, O'Donnell MJ. Front Neurol. 2022 Feb 4;13:821135. DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2022.821135.

Anger or emotional upset and heavy physical exertion as triggers of stroke: the INTERSTROKE study. Smyth A, O'Donnell M, Hankey GJ, Rangarajan S, Lopez-Jaramillo P, Xavier D, Zhang H, Canavan M, Damasceno A, Langhorne P, Avezum A, Pogosova N, Oguz A, Yusuf S; INTERSTROKE investigators, Eur Heart J. 2022 Jan 25;43(3):202-209. DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab738.

Virtual geriatric clinics and the COVID-19 catalyst: a rapid review. Murphy RP, Dennehy KA, Costello MM, Murphy EP, Judge CS, O'Donnell MJ, Canavan M. Age Ageing. 2020; 49(6):907-914. DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afaa191.

Canavan, M., Smyth, A., Bosch, J., Jensen, M., McGrath, E. R., Mulkerrin, E. C., & O'Donnell, M. J. (2015). Does lowering blood pressure with antihypertensive therapy preserve independence in activities of daily living? A systematic review. Am J Hypertens, 28(2), 273-279. doi:10.1093/ajh/hpu131.

Conferences:

Organising Committee and Opening Address at Irish Gerontological Society (IGS) Meeting 2023 (Galway)

“The Challenge of Integrating Integrated Care and Developing an Integrated Care Attuned

Workforce”. Special Interest Group for Integrated Care Session at Irish Gerontological Society

Meeting Galway 2023

Member of the International Federation for Integrated Care (IFIC)Leadership Special Interest group. Presented at inaugural International Webinar Feb 1st on the Lived Experience of Leadership in Integrated Care.

Grants as Lead PI:

Lead Applicant for Sláintecare bid for Galway Integrated Care for Older Persons’ Hub. Sláintecare Project 340B: €334,381, September 2019.

Co-applicant for Dementia Acute Hospital Quality Improvement Grant. Awarded for In-Hospital Dementia Café at University Hospital Galway €4,000, Feb 2020.

Co Applicant for HRB DIFA grant: "SalT supplementation in Older adults with Orthostatic intolerance Disorders (STOOD): a phase IIa randomised controlled trial of sodium supplementation to moderate versus high sodium range" (DIFA-PA-2023-046) €398,587.61, Feb 2023

Co-Applicant University of Galway College of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, Age Friendly University Seed Funding , €10,000 September 2023

Lead Applicant : RCPI Aspire Post CSCST Fellowship in Integrated Care for University Hospital Galway, €86,742 October 2023

Current Research Interests:

Integrated Care for Older People, Dementia, Stroke, Hypertension, Cardiovascular Prevention, Complex Adaptive Systems of Health Care and Organisations, Digital Health and Medical Devices for Older People, Ageing Societies

Press, Videos, Public Lectures and Talks:

Helping older people avoid long hospital stays.

Social Media:

Twitter