PEOPLE - APPOINTMENTS

Newly appointed as BRICCS Manager for the BRU, Chris Greengrass.

New Manager at National Research Centre for Heart Disease

Key appointment will play role in new system for recruiting patients

16 December 2009

The University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust have appointed Chris Greengrass as the Biomedical Research Informatics Centre for Cardio Vascular Sciences (BRICCS) Manager at Glenfield Hospital.

The Biomedical Research Unit is a £5.5 million national research centre for heart disease, funded by the National Institute of Health Research. More than 100 doctors and scientists will be involved in research at the new centre. Key strands of research will include the genetics and inheritance of heart disease, high blood pressure and the introduction of new treatments including different types of cardiac stents.

Previously Chris worked in the NHS as Matron for the Coronary care Units in UHL, Operational Manager for the developing emergency services at the Glenfield Hospital and more recently as the Clinical Audit and Performance Manager for the Cardio Respiratory Directorate.

Chris has a great deal of experience working with multi disciplinary teams, crossing professional boundaries and a range of clinical environments. He has considerable experience managing audit teams and evaluating patient process with a view to effective data capture.

Notably Chris has led the implementation of the Myocardial Ischemia National Audit project (MINAP) for the trust and the ICD/Pacemaker audit. Successfully embedding the audit process within service, ensuring quality and transparency of information whilst providing an effective a tool for multi disciplinary service improvement. These models has been accepted good practice and implemented in centres across the region.

Chris will be responsible for developing BRICCS, a system for recruiting patients with a broad spectrum of cardiovascular disease, including coronary artery disease, acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, hypertension, valve disease, dysrhythmias, embolism, strokes, peripheral vascular disease and aneurysms. Plasma/serum and DNA/RNA will be stored for future analyses of protein/chemical biomarkers, genetic composition and RNA analyses. This information will enable an in-depth examination of disease mechanisms in this cohort. This observational cohort project will also link future mortality and hospitalization events with these protein and DNA analyses. It will be possible to generate optimal diagnostic and prognostic algorithms for a broad spectrum of cardiovascular disease, enabling further testing of any hypotheses generated from these observations.