
MHIF Physician-Initiated Research
The MHIF Physician-Initiated Research Program provides our researchers the opportunity to design and lead their own studies to answer critical heart and vascular health questions that might otherwise go unanswered. This research is funded by MHIF and not sponsored by industry partners.
Answering Critical Questions
Every day, MHIF research physicians focus on compelling frontiers of treatment and clinical areas of urgent patient need. And also every day in their clinical practice with patients, our partnering cardiologists and vascular specialists at the Minneapolis Heart Institute® (MHI) continually unearth new research questions that they feel are imperative to explore further.
To answer those critical questions that might otherwise go unanswered, MHIF supports physician-initiated research, or research that is initiated by a physician’s simple, yet powerful question: Why?
MHIF’s Innovation Fund provides the resources necessary to answer the questions, share the findings with professionals worldwide, and ultimately improve the quality and length of patients’ lives.


MHIF leads groundbreaking physician-initiated research across all cardiovascular specialties and a wide spectrum of heart and vascular diseases, as well as prevention. This research includes studies ranging from the use of stem cells, to exploring the effects of diet and exercise and lifestyle factors, to exploring health disparities. Each research project is conceived and led by an MHI® physician and is executed by a dedicated team of highly skilled MHIF staff.
Over the past four decades, MHIF’s Physician-Initiated Research Program has gained an international reputation by virtue of a number of key contributions to improving cardiovascular health throughout the world. This research has transformed patient care, improved medical practice and trained future generations of researchers. Every year, MHIF research is regularly featured at the most prestigious cardiovascular research conferences.
Step 1: Why? What if?

Step 2: Study Development & Approval

Step 3: Patient Recruitment

Step 4: Research Activities

Step 5: Analyzing Data

Step 6: Find Results, Share Findings

Our Innovation Fund
“We’re very excited about the Innovation Fund, because it will allow us to be more agile in pursuing investigator-initiated research opportunities. As a complement to the research we conduct with funding from our vitally important industry partners, this new fund will enable us to move quickly in commencing important research that will help us further innovation and identify lifesaving treatment options.”
– Cardiologist and MHIF researcher Dr. William Katsiyiannis

Our Innovation Fund Supports:
- Disease and Disease Progression Studies – Improve the ability to understand, identify and prevent cardiovascular disease.
- Intervention Studies – Evaluate new procedures or advanced techniques that improve outcomes for patients.
- Registry Studies – Use the power of patient data to change the way we identify or effectively treat conditions.
- Care Delivery Studies – Look for ways to deliver value-based care for better patient outcomes and lower health care costs.