Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and the University of Windsor have announced the inaugural winners of the Partners in Research Seed Grant.

Officials say $10,000 has been awarded to two research projects that will help transform patient care in stroke and cardiac rehabilitation.

It is funded through their Academic Research Committee.

ARC is a group made up of members from both organizations that have been committed to ensuring the highest quality standards are maintained in research collaborations.

"There has been a history of long-standing collaborative working in many fields between the University of Windsor and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare," said Dr. Michael Siu, VP of the U of W's Research and Innovation Department." Our joint ARC provides a formal mechanism to the shared commitment to ensure excellent research, evaluation and knowledge transfer in our region," he concluded at a press conference Monday.

Dr. Susan Fox of U of W's Faculty of Nursing and Dr. Nathania Liam, HDGH's clinical lead of HDGH's rehabilitative programs were granted funds to evaluate the effectiveness of hospital and home based outpatient rehab services for stroke survivors in the Windsor Essex Community.

"We know that stroke is one of the common reasons for hospital admissions in Ontario. Locally, it is among the highest in the province," said Fox. "What this grant will allow us to do is look at the ongoing rehab needs of patients after they leave acute care or inpatient rehab and what setting this best to take place."

The second grant went to a group of local and U.S.-based researchers who are comparing cardiac rehab models of care in the great lakes central region.

“It is the hope that our work will endorse program characteristics that enhance Cardiac Rehab use and completion. We know now that some populations are less likely to enroll in Cardiac Rehab and are looking at how to maximize uptake to find the ideal model from both an economic and patient care perspective," said lead principal investigator Dr. Cheri McGowan, associate professor & kinesiology research coordinator at the U of W.

"This has the potential to help thousands of individuals living in Windsor-Essex and beyond to achieve the best possible outcome," McGowan adds.

Findings from both studies will be released in the spring of 2020.