Projects

Current projects

Association between remdesivir and potential cardiac adverse events among patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Assessment of whether the antiviral drug remdesivir is associated with cardiac adverse events in patients with COVID-19. Study registration and protocol: CRD42022383647.

Biomarkers Predicting Adverse Outcomes and the Optimization of Immunosuppressive Therapy After Heart Transplantation: A Scoping Review

This review aims to:

  • Summarise the incidence of complications following heart transplant surgery.
  • Determine which biomarkers have currently been developed to predict short- and long-term adverse outcomes following heart transplant surgery and how these biomarkers perform.
  • Understand how different immunosuppression protocols are associated with varying concentrations of biomarkers developed in the literature.

Past Projects

PhD in Healthcare Analytics / Computer Science (Finished in September 2022)

Predicting postoperative complications in cardiac patients at Golden Jubilee National Hospital based on preoperative and critical care data, using statistical and machine learning methods.

My PhD thesis involves four main parts:

  • Conducting explorative interviews with cardiac surgeons and anaesthetists to understand what kind of decision support tools cardiac surgeons and anaesthetists are using to avoid adverse outcomes following open-heart surgery. – Qualitative analysis
  • Carrying out a pilot Delphi study to develop a definition and classification for postoperative complications following cardiac surgery. – Qualitative analysis
  • Developing preoperative prediction models for “Severe” complications, acute kidney injury and delirium for patients undergoing cardiac surgery.
  • Developing prediction models to predict acute kidney injury and delirium following cardiac surgery on an hourly basis in the ICU.

Data analytics scoping study for telehealth systems in Glasgow, Scotland (Finished in September 2022)

Data linkage and preliminary analysis of telehealth data, in collaboration with Glasgow City Council and Tunstall.

Evaluation study for Care Homes Assessment Tool (CHAT) for Older People (Finished in May 2022)

Our role in the project is to carry out an evaluation study by gathering information and carrying out analysis.  The results from this study will show whether using the CHAT improves the COVID-19 symptom tracking and escalation process and help inform whether the tool could be used more widely in Scotland.

As part of this project, we published a scoping review to understand the current landscape of decision support tools used at long-term care facilities. The preprint for this paper can be found here: https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/39681/accepted

MPhil in Healthcare Analytics / Computer Science (Finished in September 2017)

Developing predictive models for postoperative complications in cardiac patients at Golden Jubilee National Hospital.

In this thesis, cardiac data in Golden Jubilee National Hospital was analysed to develop predictive models for postoperative complications in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), valve, and combined valve and CABG surgery. Three outcomes were investigated: (a) if the patient had postoperative complications, (b) if the patient had severe postoperative complications, and (c) the level of postoperative complications. For each outcome, prediction models were developed, using logistic regression (a, b) and ordinal logistic regression (c). The variables associated with severe complications and the local model predicting severe complications could help the clinicians identify which patients are more likely to have severe complications in order to allocate resources accordingly.

The MPhil thesis can be accessed here.