University Mission
Research for better care
The Montreal Sacré-Cœur Hospital is a supra-regional hospital centre that has its own research centre. The research teams of the Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine (CARSM), the Jean-Jacques-Gauthier Cardio-Respiratory Rehabilitation Centre, the Integrated Trauma Centre and the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre are also part of the centre.
The Centre Savoirs partagés
The research conducted in the various CIUSSS NÎM facilities, including the work carried out at the Montreal Sacré-Cœur Hospital Research Centre, is grouped under the name Centre Savoirs partagés.
The Centre promotes the excellence of its researchers at the national and international levels by focusing on close collaboration between all the players in the clinical, social and basic science research fields.
Areas of research excellence
The research activities of the Centre Savoirs partagés have been grouped around four areas of expertise.
- Trauma and critical care
- Brain in action
- Health promotion, prevention and management of chronic diseases
- Social innovation
The work conducted by the first three divisions is carried out by Sacré-Cœur research groups. These areas of excellence have been recognized by the awarding of 20 research chairs.
Le CARSM to study sleep disorders
Sacré-Cœur's Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine (CARSM) houses a clinic and a research group composed of 6 physicians, 17 researchers, 60 employees and over 50 graduate students.
The mission of this centre is to generate new knowledge about sleep and to understand, diagnose, treat and prevent sleep disorders.
Each year, the CARSM clinic sees more than 2,500 patients for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, including insomnia, restless leg syndrome, hypersomnia, narcolepsy, REM sleep behaviour disorder and sleepwalking.
Patients are referred from all over the country, and even from Europe and the United States. It is also a major international centre for sleep research.
The CARSM team is also the custodian of the Canadian Biobank for Sleep Research, which contains 40,000 patient blood, urine and cerebrospinal fluid samples. In addition, there is an entire informatics infrastructure containing the clinical data collected from these same patients who have given their consent to have their samples stored.
Sacré-Cœur has a true gem. Julie Carrier, researcher and professor in the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal, is the Biobank's scientific director.
Research at the core of ITC
The Integrated Trauma Centre (ITC), the only one of its kind in Canada, fosters the development and success of research in trauma and acute care.
It brings together state-of-the-art clinical services and facilities, teaching spaces and research laboratories in a single shared space, fostering the proliferation of ideas and synergy between these missions: clinical (care), research and teaching.
MBMC and the ICARE study
The Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre (MBMC) was founded in 2006 by researchers Simon Bacon and Kim Lavoie. It is dedicated to research and training in the fields of behavioural medicine (including clinical trials and epidemiology) and psychophysiology.
The international ICARE study, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the most important research projects initiated and conducted by the MBMC.
Updating knowledge for teaching
Sacré-Cœur's physicians, health care professionals, nurses and attendants are heavily involved in teaching. Many have close ties to major academic institutions such as the Université de Montréal or teaching colleges.
The fact that they need to update their knowledge to train the next generation of care providers has great benefits for patients, including state-of-the-art care.
Using simulation to teach complex cases
Sacré-Cœur's teams are actively involved in enhancing trauma and critical care services and in training and developing the next generation of professionals, thereby contributing to the advancement of knowledge and quality of care in this cutting-edge field.
The six simulation and teaching laboratories of the Integrated Trauma Centre allow for the simulation of the most complex cases.
Fellowships to attract the best specialists
The Foundation helps establish fellowship programs that attract specialists in various fields, such as critical care, cardiology and pulmonology.
These physicians come to complete their fellowship training with our leading experts in these highly specialized fields. Some of them will stay on the Sacré-Cœur teams to establish their practice.
Students accompany our researchers
The Sacré-Cœur Hospital Research Centre teams, whether in the fields of sleep disorders, concussions, workplace asthma or cardio-respiratory rehabilitation, welcome doctoral or post-doctoral students. It is by working with our researchers that they develop an interest for hospital-based research.
A few interesting numbers
Each year Sacré-Cœur welcomes 600 research students and offers 3671 internships, distributed as follows:
2636
in medicine
748
in nursing
287
in other professional fields