Milly Lo's research focuses on employing a data informatics approach to big data generated from routine clinical care for research to improve patient treatments, outcomes, and safety in paediatric critical care. 

After completing clinical training in paediatric intensive care medicine in Edinburgh, Birmingham and Melbourne (Australia), Dr. Lo returned to the Edinburgh's Sick Children Hospital as a Consultant Paediatric Intensivist and Research Lead.

Dr Lo's research training includes successful completion of a PhD degree and post-doctoral research fellowship in childhood brain trauma in Edinburgh (UK) and Toronoto (Canada) respectively. Since returning to Edinburgh, Dr Lo has set-up and is leading a dynamic multi-disciplinary data informatics improvement research programme (IMPACT-ACE) and a European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) funded multi-national data informatics paediatric brain trauma initiative (KidsBrainIT).

Group members:

• Dr Ian Piper - Principal Research Health Care Scientist and Co-ordinator of BrainIT
• Dr Shima Abdullateef - Post-doctoral Research Fellow
• Dr Laura Smith - Research Group Co-ordinator

Dr Lo's research programme has 2 key themes:

Neuro-critical care related research

KidsBrainIT is an international childhood brain trauma 'big-data' initiative. Phase-1 was funded by a prestiguious EU Grant (621,843 Euros over 2 years) through the European Research Area Networks - the Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research (ERA-NET NEURON). KidsBrainIT data-banks use high-quality routinely collected anonymised clinical, physiological and outcome data from paediatric patients with life threatening brain trauma recruited in 16 PICU from 7 countries (9 UK, 1 Belgium, 1 Spain, 1 Latvia, 1 Italy, 1 Germany and 2 Romania) for research to better understand the importance of bespoke clinical management improvements. In Phase-1, we focused on investigating bespoke treatment of increased brain pressure from brain swelling in paediatric brain trauma, and how optimal cerebral perfusion pressure relates to outcome. Prof. Aziz Sheikh kindly provided the KidsBrainIT team a base at the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics in Edinburgh Bioquarter. With this exciting and amazing support, new collaborations and funding applicaitions are being developed for future phases of KidsBrainIT.

Dr Lo plans to use KidsBrainIT as a proof of concept to demonstrate the benefits of data-intensive informatics in improvement research and to translate this concept beyond disease specific research and quality improvement work in order to benefit the broader critical care setting and other areas of health care across the world in the future.

Other critical care related research

Team IMPACT-ACE: The ethos of our improvement research programme in paediatric critical care medicine is to Improve Patient Care Through research and Appreciating Clinical Excellence (IMPACT-ACE). Since its inception in 2013, Dr Lo has successfully built a dynamic multi-disciplinary research team consisting of front-line clinical staff of all grades who are passionate in improving the quality of clinical care and maintaining clinical excellence. Furthermore, IMPACT-ACE is about team work, open collaborations with different teams within the PICU and beyond, engaging and empowering clinical staff to pursue positive changes in clinically relevant topics they are passionate about.

Dr Lo's active collaborations include multi-disciplinary clinical front-line staff (nurses, allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, dieticians, pharmacists and medical staff), clinical electronic data management and education teams, quality assurance/improvement team (Datix, data reporting to the Scottish Patient Safety Programme), Learning from Excellence team, staff engagamenet team, and Dr Lo's own research team, and scientists in Edinburgh, the rest of the UK, and the EU. This approach ensures that formal academic support can be brough to clinical staff to empower them to improve clinical care while enhancing staff engagement to deliver and maintain clinical excellence through a translational and evidence based approach. The PICU where Dr Lo is based is the first in the UK to develop this collaborative approach to bring clinicians and scientists together.

Principal Supervisor:

• Sarah Dunn - PhD Student (MRC DTP Precision Medicine Programme)
• John Palmer - PhD Student (MRC DTP Precision Medicine Programme)

Co-Supervisor:

• Evangelos Kafantaris - PhD Student (School of Engineering)
• Hollan Haule - PhD Student (School of Engineering)

Collaborators:

Dr Javier Escudero, Senior Lecturer (School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh)

Dr Vera Nenadovic, Founder (BrainsView Ltd, Ontario, Canada) and Nurse Practitioner (Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, Canada)

Dr Areti Manataki, Lecturer (School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews)

Dr Aileen Neilson, Senior Health Economist (Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh)

Dr Qalab Abbas, Assistant Professor / Paediatric Intensivist (The Aga Khan University Medical College, Pakistan)

Window in the Brain

KidsBrainIT

Edinburgh Paediatric Critical Care Unit