Kathy Kruger - Gold Coast Health & Knowledge Precinct

Pilot clinician entrepreneurship program set for succcess

A first cohort of 12 clinicians has taken the leap into the entrepreneurial world, as the Precinct pilots a new training program of 7 customised workshops and personalised mentoring, developed to expose clinicians to an innovation mindset and the steps they need to take to become entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs. Delivered by Griffith Business School, in partnership with Gold Coast Health and supported by Advance Queensland, the Clinician Entrepreneurship Change Agents Program has got off to a successful start, with a second cohort set to start in October.

The first cohort of 12 clinicians has taken the leap into the world of entrepreneurship, as GCHKP pilots a training program developed to build in clinicians an innovation mindset and the steps needed to take their healthtech concepts to market.

Delivered by Griffith Business School, in partnership with Gold Coast Health and supported by Advance Queensland, the Clinician Entrepreneurship Change Agents Program (CECAP) has got off to a successful start, with a second cohort set to start in October.

Clinicians are great at identifying problems – and there are plenty in the healthcare system! They’re also good at coming up with solutions. But what they really need is a shift to an entrepreneurial mindset and that’s where CECAP comes in.

“I came into CECAP with a problem emanating from my work as a nurse in communicating with people from non-English speaking backgrounds,” says Doreen Muzhingi, from Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

It was also personal, as Doreen told the audience in her ‘pitch practice’ presentation at the end of the workshop and personalised mentoring program. Her non-English-speaking mother was left confused and fearful after being hospitalised while visiting Doreen from overseas. Such personal motivation is often the bright spark behind an idea that then needs opportunity evaluation, market sounding, business planning and technical advice to be developed into a marketable product or innovation. Or to be shelved, in favour of a new idea – a common start-up pivot.

“We do have interpreters, but they are not accessible, and people can miss out on treatment, stay longer or discharge against medical guidance because they don’t understand,” Doreen says. “My solution is a multi-lingual interactive app to bridge communication between nurses and other clinicians and their patients.”

“I can’t pinpoint one thing with CECAP, everything was valuable, but I did like that they told us on the first day to expect failures, and to get back up and take on all the feedback.”

For Gold Coast University Hospital Emergency Department nurse Kelsey Hicton, CECAP honed her idea, while making her look closely at what was already available in the market.

“My CECAP project is based around wireless ECG and Cardiac monitoring in the emergency department,” says Kelsey.

“There are some products available for at-home use and I want to bring a version into the hospital environment to improve ergonomics and patient comfort and to reduce person hours.”

“I think my most valuable takeaways from CECAP are about how clinicians are stuck in a certain way of thinking, and how we need to take on different perspectives and change our delivery style to reframe how we present to investors. The mentoring sessions as well have been amazing, everyone has been so supportive.”

CECAP delivered 7 workshop modules, a combined 60 hours of mentoring, 6 guest speakers and networking opportunities

The program concluded with a ‘Pitch Perfect Panel’ featuring Medtech CEO Richard Nash, Healtech founder and LuminaX graduate Yupin Robson, Young gun VC Tristan Latcham and Lori Phegan from Inappropriate Gifts, who successfully pitched to Shark Tank.

Program Lead, Professor Naomi Birdthistle, says it was great to see the evolution of the first cohort, with ideas including an app-based communication tool to streamline communications between doctors, an AI-enabled predictive tool to plan patient discharge pathways from as early as their admission, and development of physical products.

“Some in our group were in the early exploratory stage, while others had a more fixed idea and everyone was able to refine and sometimes change their thinking,” says Professor Birdthistle.

“We even had two physical prototypes produced, in partnership with Griffith’s Advanced Design and Prototyping Insititute (ADaPT) – a specialised eco-friendly tray design to streamline intubation of patients and reduce medical waste, which was produced by Anaesthesist Assistant Alex Savin, and a small thumb-sleeve device to help frail elderly and arthritic patients open packaged hospital foods, designed by Allied Health Nutritionist Julian Ryan.”

Podiatrist and biomechanical researcher Dr Jahishni Maharaj also honed her business skills alongside her designs for orthoses to help prevent diabetic foot ulcers.

CECAP has received more than 200 expressions of interest in total, including those who are undertaking an online Business Literacy Program. A second workshop cohort is set to start next month and the program is wait-listing for 2024.

Check out our videos

Cohort 1 kicks off:

Introduction to CECAP:

Filed Under: BUSINESS, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY Tagged With: Griffith University, healthtech, LuminaX

Griffith University team win top prize at 2023 LuminaX HealthTech Accelerator

After 14 weeks, 20 workshops, 300 hours of mentoring with 30+ mentors and a whole lot of support, 10 gamechanging healthtech startups hit the stage to pitch their businesses in front of more than 200 members of the GCHKP innovation ecosystem at LuminaX 2023 Demo Night.

And from an impressive lineup of commercial concepts to improve patient safety, provide VR treatment for complex mental health conditions, streamline nurse recruitment, revolutionise treatment for children with lower limb deformities and more, a trio of Griffith University researchers were named Startup of the Year for YourTrack, a neurodevelopmental assessment tool for children needing developmental support.

LuminaX Director Dren Xerxa with the YourTrack team: Professor Dianne Shanley, Dr Erinn Hawkins and Dr Wei Lui

Backed by extensive research and with a vision to be powered by AI, YourTrack was developed to track and triage children aged 0-17 years who have developmental concerns. The technology puts neurodevelopmental assessment in the hands of everyday health providers such as GPs and nurses, starting assessment and support earlier, rather than having to wait to rely on specialist paediatricians to assess vulnerable children who are falling behind.

Other clinical assessment tools are largely applicable to young children, but the YourTrack system works for children and adolescents while also providing a greater degree of insight into the extent of a child’s developmental delays.

YourTrack harnesses the power of local health providers so that kids can be ‘diagnosed faster, supported sooner’ and is set to do just that through the commercial acceleration the team achieved through LuminaX.

Professor Dianne Shanley, a clinical psychologist and prominent expert in health service delivery, says the team is excited to have a path towards sharing commercial proceeds from their clinical assessment tool with the community who helped design it.

“The LuminaX journey has been one of the most memorable and engaging learning experiences and we’re so thrilled and surprised to receive the award,” says Professor Shanley.

“The mentoring has helped us to develop a commercial pathway for organisations across the country to access what we’ve co-designed through our research.”

YourTrack Research Manager Dr Wei Liu says LuminaX was invaluable in honing the team’s understanding of customers.

“We reformed our pitch deck, developed our business model and “go to market” strategies, as well as rebranded our logo and website,” says Dr Liu.

“The biggest lesson I learned is to spend time with customers to understand what they want, not what we think they want. Then we present our products as either solving their problems or fulfilling their needs instead of “hard selling” what we have created.

“We’ve successfully attracted several new customers by using this method.”

Dr Erinn Hawkins, who co-developed part of the tracking system with a team in Bangladesh, says they now feel confident to work with partners to make YourTrack Developmental Tracking Systems the most trusted developmental assessment system on the market.

“We believe we can now translate our research outcomes into a commercial product that will help us reach and support the more than one million Australian children with developmental vulnerabilities,” she says.

Alignus team aid surgeries during LuminaX

Dr Martina Barzan delivers the Alignus pitch

For the second Griffith University team in the program, biomedical engineer Dr Martina Barzan and clinical researcher Associate Professor Chris Carty of Alignus, LuminaX provided a boost towards the commercial rollout of their world-leading surgery simulation technology to aid orthopaedic surgeries, starting with paediatric patients.

Even during the busy LuminaX program, Dr Barzan worked with surgeons to plan and execute two complex orthopaedic surgeries, taking the total of successful procedures performed with their products to almost 30.

“[In LuminaX] we had access to industry leaders in product development, brand identity and financial modelling, and with the support of the expert LuminaX team, we were able to prepare a compelling pitch that is already attracting investment interest, “says Associate Professor Carty.

“Our next step is to partner with like-minded investors to secure regulatory approval for Alignus products by the end of 2024.”

LuminaX Fan Fave winner optimises nurse recruitment

For nurse Anna Lumb, relocating to Brisbane and searching for the right job sparked her idea to create a dedicated careers marketplace for what she call’s Australia’s almost half-a-million strong “nurseforce”.

Anna Lumb of Nursify won the Fans Fave Award

Struck by the irony of working in Australia’s most sought-after profession but being unable to connect directly with hospitals to find the right role, Nursify was born. One of six female founders to pitch during the slick Demo Night at Miami Marketta, Lumb was judged ‘Fans Fave’.

LuminaX is a 14-week program that validates and commercialises selected early-stage, high-growth activities applying tech or AI solutions to healthcare, medtech and wellness. Developed and delivered by Cohort Innovation Space, it has the support of major partners the Queensland Government (through Economic Development Queensland and Advance Queensland) and City of Gold Coast.

Griffith University, Mater Hospital, the Queensland AI Hub and IntelliHQ are onboard as industry partners.

Cohort has the full event livestream here.

Filed Under: BUSINESS, INVEST, TECHNOLOGY

International MedTech company joins GCHKP ecosystem

With a vision of the Gold Coast as a leading global centre for endovascular R&D and training, neurovascular device company Wallaby-phenox (Wallaby, phenox) has based its Vice President for international direct markets, including Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East, in a new office in the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct.

The US/Chinese/German-operated company will leverage recent investment by Doctors Hal Rice and Laetitia de Villiers in their world-first NeuTex Image-guided surgery and robotics training centre, in partnership with global medical leader Philips, to stage global expansion in treatments for stroke and other conditions.

A 20-year-veteran of the medical device industry with a passion for the life-saving potential of neuro-interventional technologies, Wallaby-phenox’s Kirk Slater has never been more excited at the opportunity to save lives and reduce disability through minimally-invasive endovascular procedures.

And he loves that he can achieve global impact from his adopted home on the Gold Coast.

“The Gold Coast is a great location to access the Asia-Pacific, but the unique value is the opportunity to work closely with NeuTex and doctors Rice and de Villiers, who I’ve known and worked with as leading innovators for 15 years,” Kirk says.

Originally from South Africa and having worked for both major and smaller MedTech companies in Australia and New Zealand, Kirk is relishing a return to a smaller company with a growing global reach, accelerated when Wallaby Medical, jointly based in the US and China, acquired German neuro-interventional leader phenox in April 2022.

Their portfolio of medical products now includes catheters, coil systems and flow modulation devices, with 5 R&D centers, 3 production bases, over 700 employees worldwide, and more than 350 global patents granted or pending.

“I like building things and being an underdog,” Kirk says.

“In this role, I have the opportunity to be creative and disruptive, and we need innovation if we are to substantially increase endovascular treatment for stroke over the prevailing protocol of clot-busting drugs, which unfortunately leaves some patients clinically excluded from treatment due to time-sensitivity and underlying conditions.”

Kirk stresses that it’s not a battle of drugs vs devices, but an opportunity to continue to evolve endovascular treatments to achieve broader reach by taking a ‘value-based’ healthcare approach.

“When considering treatment options and costs we want to be evaluating what one ‘quality life year’ is worth to the individual and society – stroke unfortunately still causes a lot of disability,” he says.

The neurovascular field has led the way in minimally-invasive image-guided interventions, treating strokes and brain aneurysms by feeding tiny devices such as coils and stents into the brain through fine catheters to repair blockages. The future includes treating patients with neurodegenerative conditions using implantable devices.

Kirk with Wallaby-phenox President Global Commercial Peter Cooke (second from right) with BirdDog and Remedi CEO Dan Miall (left) and Medical Innovation Manager Ben Wills (right)

Beyond conditions in the brain, innovation in cardiovascular, peripheral vascular, spinal and renal treatments using catheters and devices present the opportunity to help many more patients.

“The Neurovascular device market is worth $4-5 billion worldwide, compared to the $60 billion global cardiology market, which shows the order of magnitude of patients that innovation in cardiology could serve.”

Kirk plans to grow a team of 6 based at Cohort Innovation Space, with the same number based across Australia within the next few years.

He’ll concentrate on opening up the Indian market and the broader Asia-Pacific region, as well as direct entry into Latin America – a big brief that requires long days and nights to accommodate different timezones.

Equally, he’s focused on what comes next – innovation in catheter designs that are thinner and more durable – and next-generation training, partnering with NeuTex and their technology partner BirdDog, an Australian ASX-listed company that provides high-fidelity video capture and software to enable remote proctoring.

“We want to be the first neurovascular device company to deliver truly global workshops via high-quality video links that provide realistic experiences for trainees in multiple locations at once,” Kirk says.

“One day we hope that will extend to using robotics to enable cross-border procedures, where expert clinicians can collaborate to treat complex cases.”

Beyond conditions in the brain, innovation in cardiovascular, peripheral vascular, spinal and renal treatments using catheters and devices present the opportunity to help many more patients.

Kirk plans to grow a team of 6 based at Cohort Innovation Space, with the same number based across Australia within the next few years.

“One day we hope that will extend to using robotics to enable cross-border procedures, where expert clinicians can collaborate to treat complex cases.”