A new data platform to transform heart rhythm disorder care has received a £2.4 million boost from the UK’s Medical Research Council.
The OpenEP|NET project will create a national database to enable improved management and outcomes for patients with conditions like atrial fibrillation (AF), which is the most common heart rhythm disorder. AF significantly raises the risk of stroke, heart failure, dementia, and premature death.
Cardiac electrophysiology focuses on the study and treatment of heart rhythm disorders but, despite the vast amounts of data collected during patient treatments, this information has not been systematically used to guide patient management.
As a result, cardiology, and specifically electrophysiology, lacks digital approaches for therapy guidance, with the absence of effective data handling tools considered by some a critical barrier.
The OpenEP|NET project, supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service, builds on the work of Dr Steven Williams, of the University of Edinburgh, collaborating with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London, NHS Lothian and Imperial College London.
Dr Williams and his team previously developed OpenEP, an open data standard for managing electrophysiology data, and EP Workbench, a computer interface for visualising and manipulating this information.
Building on these two technologies, OpenEP|NET now aims to empower clinicians by developing ways to predict patient responses to treatment and identify those at risk of major cardiovascular events.
Current treatments for atrial fibrillation include ablation, which is an invasive and expensive procedure, that causes a small amount of scarring on the heart to break up the electrical signals that cause irregular heartbeat. Prescription medication can have side effects or be ineffective. Better understanding of AF and related conditions could lead to improved treatments.
Dr Willliams said: “This initiative marks a crucial step toward precision medicine in cardiac care. As well as predicting the likely outcomes of heart rhythm disorder treatments, our aim is to transform the management of these common conditions.
“By developing methodologies to support ‘big data’ experiments in electrophysiology, we hope this project will become the catalyst for a new era of data-driven diagnosis and therapy with direct benefits for arrhythmia patients.”
Mark O'Neill, Professor of Electrophysiology, Medical Director for Heart, Lung and Critical Care at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, added: “Electrophysiology labs across the world generate vast amounts of highly valuable data, yet too much of it remains trapped within individual hardware systems.
“OpenEP|NET has the potential to unlock this latent resource by enabling truly open, international collaboration between clinicians, researchers and industry. By bringing data together at scale, we can accelerate innovation, deepen our understanding of heart rhythm disorders and move decisively toward more precise, data-driven care for patients.”
Dr Susan Bodie, director of Innovation Licensing and Development at Edinburgh Innovations, commented: “This set of tools is an important asset for academic, industry partners and clinicians looking to innovate in the field of heart rhythm disorders to ultimately improve patient care.”
Caption: The image shows a combination of heart electrical data analysed using OpenEP, including heart signal recordings, electrical activity spreading through the heart, and where treatments were applied.
