Postoperative myocardial injury may negatively impact health-related quality of life. Affected patients may experience higher levels of postoperative dependency. This possibility has implications for patient rehabilitation, provincial and personal healthcare costs, as well as patients' physical, emotional and mental well-being and relationships. The public health dimension of this problem could therefore be significant. In addition, an incomplete understanding exists of how individual patient cardiac risk factors, in combination with the perioperative environment, result in myocardial injury. The diagnostic investigations that are most useful in this setting have not yet been clearly defined. Patients who fail to be rescued after experiencing postoperative complications (as distinct from failure to avoid experiencing the complication in the first instance) plays a central role in postoperative mortality. Early recognition of such patients is therefore crucial. By prospectively observing a cohort of high-risk surgical patients, this study will provide insight into how these factors interact. This will allow us to better characterize the potential predictors and features of postoperative myocardial injury. We hope that our findings will aid in the identification of patient characteristics associated with increased risks of postoperative myocardial injury, thus helping to direct diagnosis, early treatment and rescue. This study will thus potentially yield important data that will positively impact future patient care and the rational use of healthcare resources.