Clinician-researcher passionate about optimizing care for patients with kidney disease

According to the Kidney Foundation of Canada, one in 10 Canadians has kidney disease and 50,000 are being treated for kidney failure. Forty-six per cent of new kidney patients are younger than 65.

Individuals suffering with advanced chronic kidney disease may have numerous symptoms, like chest pain, fatigue, headaches, nausea and shortness of breath. Kidney disease is also linked with heart disease and can have a huge impact on quality of life.

According to new Libin Cardiovascular Institute member, Dr. Tyrone Harrison, MD, PhD, a kidney specialist and researcher, individuals with advanced kidney disease are some of the most medically complex patients that health care providers see. This translates to the surgical care they receive in Alberta and elsewhere, as well.

 In fact, they are 16 times more likely to need surgery and nearly one in 10 will have a major cardiovascular event or die in the month after a surgical procedure. This is much higher than the general surgical population.

Because they are more prone to complications, Canadian healthcare guidelines focused on surgical populations may not be as applicable to individuals with kidney disease when they experience health problems. That’s because guidelines are developed for a more general population and recommended therapies may not work as well in the kidney population, says Harrison.

The result is that “health care providers might not know how best to treat this population, which means they might not receive optimal care,” says Harrison.

Harrison is working hard to change that. 

In addition to his busy medical practice, in which he specializes in treating adults with kidney disease, Harrison conducts research that he hopes will optimize care for the kidney population.

He splits his research time between investigating optimal ways to care for individuals with kidney disease after surgery and creating risk prediction tools that can help inform care of this unique population and others within Alberta. He is very interested in ways to use novel data sources in Alberta such as Connect Care, and how data-driven tools can be tested and embedded in Connect Care province wide.

Academic Career

Harrison graduated with his medical degree from the University of Calgary in 2013, completing his residency training in Internal Medicine and Nephrology in 2018. It was during his clinical studies that he realized there is a gap in understanding how best to treat kidney patients who need surgery.

The realization, along with his “amazing mentors” motivated him to pursue a PhD in Health Services Research, focused on improving our understanding of the perioperative experience for people with advanced kidney disease and strategies to improve their care. He graduated from that program in 2022 under the supervision of Drs Brenda Hemmelgarn and Paul Ronksley.

Harrison, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine, says understanding how to optimally treat this vulnerable population is important to him.

“It’s very satisfying to be a clinician and take care of the patients you are seeing, but what I love about research is that it offers the chance to inform conversations for a larger group of people and to have a bigger impact,” says Harrison.

In his work, Harrison relies on health data from databases like the Alberta Kidney Disease Network and Connect Care. He also works with patients to better understand their experiences and preferences. His goal is to not only improve care, but to do it in a way that accounts for the individual desires and needs of patients.

“Developing risk prediction tools can help inform conversations with our patients, but it’s important for physicians to ask what is important to the patients,” says Harrison. For example, some patients may be more concerned about quality, rather than length, of life after surgery.

As Harrison continues to better understand the kidney disease population, he works with several Libin Institute researchers, including Dr. Matthew James, MD, PhD, and Dr. Pietro Ravani, MD, PhD, who holds the Baay Chair in Kidney Research at the University of Calgary. Harrison is open to further collaborations.