He currently serves as the Director of the Clinical Evaluation Research Unit which functions as a methods center for multicenter clinical research. For over a decade, he chaired a multidisciplinary research group which has had a focus on developing and evaluating strategies to improve communication and decision-making at the end of life. One of his current foci of activity is disseminating awareness of these planning tools. His motto is “To live well, age well, and die well, you need to plan well!”
In addition, he is the principal investigator on a number of large scale, multicenter clinical trials and quality improvement projects. Overall, Dr. Heyland has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers, raised more than $120 million in external grant support including more than $55 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and given > 400 international presentations.