People of the Precinct - Gold Coast Health & Knowledge Precinct

Filed Under: HEALTH, People of the Precinct, TECHNOLOGY

Gold Coast Health charts new course for digital transformation

Gold Coast Health is embracing innovation and transformation like never before, with the appointment of Sandip Kumar in a newly created role as Executive Director of Transformation and Digital.

He shares Gold Coast Health’s bold vision to be at the centre of a world-class digital health hub here in the Precinct.

Sandip Kumar wants innovative companies to work with Gold Coast Health to drive transformational change in public health care, whilst also nurturing the aspiration to innovate that is prevalent amongst health service staff.

Prior to joining Gold Coast Health, Sandip was a Principal in the Client Advisory division at Queensland Treasury Corporation, whose core focus was on system transformation and sustainability. He brings a breadth of expertise in change and transformation, alongside a commercial background in corporate finance alike roles.

In the midst of the pandemic, we turned the ‘should dos’ into ‘must dos’, and now we need to figure out which of those innovations are truly sustainable in a business-as-usual sense”

Sandip Kumar, Executive Director, Transformation and Digital, Gold Coast Health

For a feature article in the international Technologymagazine.com (digital of course, and billed as the ‘digital community’ for the global technology industry), the change-driver is adamant that transformation begins with the right attitude, the right ideas, and the right delivery process. This is where technology can deliver endless possibilities.

“We need to make sure we’re not bringing technology from 1998 into 2021,“ he quips.

Gold Coast Health was well on the way to becoming a Digital Hospital – with the massive undertaking to introduce the integrated electronic medical records (IeMR) system completed in mid-2019, successfully overseen by now Queensland Health Chief Information Officer Damian Green.

As COVID-19 hit, the rapid response included not only caring for some of Australia’s first coronavirus patients, but significantly ramping up telehealth and medical simulations in a huge embrace of technology – almost 6,000 telehealth service appointments were conducted with 44% of outpatients treated remotely in 2019/20.

“We’re not just solving analog problems with analog solutions, but looking at how technology can help solve problems, as well as whether we can apply different clinical models, or new ways that non-clinical staff can interact with this space,” Sandip explains.

It is still early days, but central to future success is the new division Gold Coast Health has implemented. Sandip has divided the team into four core groups.

The first being Transformation Advisory team which is a small, interdisciplinary team of dedicated advisors with both clinical and non-clinical backgrounds tasked with identifying, defining and solving complex problems with staff and external partners which he says, “sets the foundation platforms for innovation”.

The next is the Transformation Office being the implementation branch – technology specialists and change management experts who can successfully drive new solutions that transition into the “new BAU”.

The following is the Digital Services division, which keeps the digital heartbeat and technical elements of the health service ticking. This stream makes innovation and transformation and BAU a reality.

Also, under Sandip’s watch is the Health Funding and Clinical Coding branch, who work to codify the clinical engagements patients have with clinicians to best tell the story of complexity and activity the health service is delivering.

DIGITAL ROADMAP - VIRTUAL CARE, DIGITAL LITERACY, SKILLS, SYSTEMS AND PARTNERS

Gold Coast Health is also in the process of developing its new D24 roadmap (Digital 2024) which has six pillars: virtual healthcare, advanced data and analytics, digital liberation, digital foundations, digital literacy and training; and maintaining and growing its ecosystem of essential technology partners.

Virtual health, where patients engage with clinicians using technology rather than traditional hospital visits, opens a whole raft of opportunities for patients by expanding the ‘digital front door’, including through advanced wearable devices and improvements in health literacy for patients. Virtual healthcare can help deliver improved outcomes for patients and more cost-efficient and resilient healthcare.

Digital literacy and training are key because staff need to be able to digest change in bite-sized pieces. Sandip says it is critically important to spend as much time training staff as it is innovating. There is no point in delivering more solutions if staff aren’t trained to use the systems that already exist.

Gold Coast Health is experimenting with the use of Virtual Assistance in health care. This initiative, led by a medically trained staff member, will be used to assist pre-admission and follow-up clinical practices.

This will be a gamechanger for healthcare,” Sandip enthuses, and believes it is also a key opportunity to build the GCHKP’s reputation as a digital health hub.

“We’re embracing a digital specialist workforce – employing data scientists and machine learning experts as data analytics is another key plank to enable both the organisation, and individual clinicians, to make better decisions and to help us set strategy to cope with the healthcare demands of a rapidly growing population and thrive in the future,” Sandip says.

“LuminaX (Cohort’s healthtech accelerator) is another great example of how we are looking outward as well as inward – we’re here to validate the ideas of start-ups and we’re interested in co-creating products and solutions.

And we believe our unique and open approach can also leverage big tech interest, basically multiplying our own transformation investments and increasing our chances to truly deliver transformational change in our public health system.”

With data-driven technology company Datarwe establishing in the Precinct last year to apply artificial intelligence to critical care data from the Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) and across Queensland Health, Sandip has a confident vision of companies clustering within the Precinct to create a world-class hub, especially as more physical space opens for co-location.

“From board to ward, we’re completely committed to innovation and digital health. We really look forward to not only driving it ourselves, but partnering at the hip with the organisations who are willing to go on this mission with us,” Sandip affirms.

We’re only another idea away from transformation.”

Filed Under: BUSINESS, HEALTH, INVEST, People of the Precinct, PROJECTS, Research

Bright spots in 2020 and bright future in 2021 and beyond

Professor Mario Pinto, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), Griffith University and Chair GCHKP Strategic Advisory Group

2020 marks the 20^th anniversary of the Precinct’s Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University, and Institute founder Professor Mark von Itzstein started on a high, by being named Gold Coast Citizen of the Year on Australia Day. Of course the year, and the celebrations didn’t quite go to plan.

We look forward to Australia Day 2021, with one of our Precinct’s favourite people, Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM, named Queensland Australian of the Year, and in the running for the nation’s top honour, capping off a stellar year for Queensland’s first quadriplegic doctor.

In between, much has happened in the Precinct and we can be sure that amidst the challenges, change and ‘pandemic pivoting’ that Australia is indeed the lucky country, and Queensland and the Gold Coast are the best places to be for a bright future, as GCHKP Strategic Advisory Group Chair Professor Mario Pinto reflects.

“For all the upheaval, and that very much includes our university sector, this pandemic year has brought research success, new partnerships and some business growth, and certainly heightened commercial interest in our Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct, beyond the COVID-19 horizon.

Who would have predicted that the pandemic would serve as a catalyst for increased interest in our Precinct?”

Probiotics-based biotech company Cluster Biotech moved into our Precinct in May, taking one of the new lab spaces at Cohort Innovation Space, and is already building new business. Compliance software start-up Virtual Mgr, also based at Cohort, turned the pandemic into an opportunity to pivot and even expand into the UK. Just a couple of ‘bright spots’.

Geography, stability and relative safety are strong attributes that will be more important than ever for our Precinct’s future success.

Social distancing has altered perspectives on company locations and remote working and only intensified the premium lifestyle appeal of the Gold Coast, as is evident by interstate and international company interest and reports of growing real estate sales through interstate migration, in the general absence of overseas migration and opportunities for international engagement.

Like other innovation precincts, we have a significant opportunity to build on renewed respect for science and research, and the appreciation of the value of our world-class Australian health system.

Given our healthcare assets and emerging and growing capability in advanced design and other Industry 4.0 technologies for future manufacturing, particularly in the area of medical technologies, our Precinct is well-placed to ride on a wave of interest and investment in the new economy, that will lead us through recovery and drive future growth.

Initiatives such as the Australian Government’s $1.5billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy and the focus on sovereign capacity and supply chain resilience, will assist us to partner with and attract innovative companies actively engaged in R&D, enrich and grow our existing innovation ecosystem, and enhance our impact.

Importantly, as an emerging Precinct, in a youthful city and relatively young nation, we genuinely represent a new horizon for global talent and innovative businesses, in a post-pandemic world.”

2020 Bright Spots

Professor of Emergency Care Julia Crilley (second from left) and nurse colleagues

Well-earned recognition in this International Year of the Nurse

2020 could not have been a more appropriate year to dedicate to acknowledging the amazing work of nurses.

Here in the GCHKP, Griffith University celebrated its Nursing and Midwifery program ranking No 1 in Australia, and No 2 in the world!

Meanwhile, Gold Coast Health became the first full health service in Australia to win prestigious International Magnet recognition for Nursing and Midwifery services.

Dedicated Gold Coast University Hospital nurse and Professor of Emergency Care Julia Crilley OAM was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, alongside Griffith University Pro-Vice-Chancellor Health, Professor Sheena Reilly AM, who is a renowned paediatric health researcher.

COVID - health and research response

Professor Michael Good AO, Principal Research Leader, Institute for Glycomics, past Chairman of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Queensland Great was appointed to the National Covid-19 Health and Research Advisory Committee.
Professor Michael Good

Gold Coast University Hospital treated some of Australia’s first COVID-19 patients in late January, and completed major COVID training across the health service, including 250 clinical simulations in April alone.
COVID 19 Clinical Research – researchers and clinicians have developed a world-first Precision Medicine Data Platform, including a COVID-19 dashboard, to help ICU clinicians make critical patient care decisions utilising artificial intelligence (AI). Start-up company Datarwe was awarded $1.5m Advance Queensland funding for platform and has set up a new data lab as Queensland’s new AI Hub for health at Cohort Innovation Space.

COVID-19 vaccine and therapy research – there’s been extensive research into COVID-19 vaccines and therapies as well as pandemic impacts, including a multi-pronged Glycomics approach (which included a $200,000 investment by the Queensland Government and City of Gold Coast); $300,000 from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) awarded to Professor Nigel McMillan of Griffith’s Menzies Health Institute Qld for gene silencing (sRNA) technologies targeting COVID; and Professor Suresh Mahalingham, also of Menzies, partnering with a major Indian vaccines company to develop a live attenuated COVID vaccine.

READ MORE

Research, clinical trials, partnerships and developments

A major partnership between Griffith University and Gilmour Space will speed the launch of new low earth orbit satellites

Aerospace technology – Griffith University and Gilmour Space signed a major 5-year partnership that will see Low Earth Orbit satellites developed locally and launched to space by 2023, with extensive R&D anticipated in 3D printing and prototyping, sensor technology and AI, along with a range of student training opportunities.
Clinical trials – The GCHKP accelerates as a clinical trial hub during COVID-19 – Griffith University’s Clinical Trial unit became the first location in the world to recruit patients for a multi-national rheumatology trial while screening the first patient in Australia for another multi-national trial. Griffith researchers were awarded a $2m grant from Queensland Cancer Council to expand ovarian cancer clinical trials., while other university scientists received $1.46m from the National Health and Medical Research Council for diagnostics and therapies for chronic fatigue syndrome. Gold Coast Health reported 94 active clinical trials and 151 research projects, including a world-first trial of a robotic arm brain aneurysm procedure and will co-lead a $2.3m trial into treatments for deadly sepsis.
Medical technologies – materials science researchers developed new implantable electronics for use in brain stimulation and cardiac pacemakers; health technology researchers won the national iAwards 2020 Business Industry Solution of the Year with a device to better identify and treat pain, while another major biomedical engineering project is developing world-first artificial wrist ligament.

Proxima – child health and education centre of excellence

The $80m Proxima development by Evans Long was announced as a prestige integrated centre of excellence in child education and health – the first private commercial development in the GCHKP’s Lumina commercial cluster. Construction is set to start in the first half of 2021, with Sanctuary Learning Adventure named as the innovative operator of a special-needs focused childcare centre.

Cohort Labs – Cohort Innovation Space opened new PC1 and PC2 labs in May, including a new biotechnology lab quickly taken up by probiotics-based biotech company Cluster Biotech.

Filed Under: BUSINESS, People of the Precinct, Research

People of the Precinct – discovering an ocean of possibilities through data science

Dr Stephanie Chaousis is connecting academia, industry and healthcare to the power of AI and data science

With technology company Datarwe opening its doors to a new DataScience lab within Cohort in the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct, it can accelerate development of its Precision Medicine Data Platform (PDMP), a world-leading comprehensive acute care medical research platform – providing a major new resource to develop AI enabled diagnostics, treatment protocols and med-tech products in Queensland.

Driving partnerships and engagement, including a major partnership with Griffith University, is former alumnus Dr Stephanie Chaousis, an Ecotoxicology PhD whose own research saw her wading through a sea of data to develop a keen appreciation for the potential of AI and machine learning.

When Stephanie Chaousis undertook her undergraduate marine and molecular science studies at James Cook University, before completing post-graduate honours exploring therapeutic effects of jellyfish venom at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine in 2012, the opportunities presented by the next-generation of artificial intelligence (AI) may still have seemed oceans away, for novice researchers like herself.

Only eight years ago the potential of AI and machine learning for researchers, industry and indeed the whole world, was being rapidly developed in university computer science labs, tech companies and major corporations, but the ripple effect on research in other scientific fields was still to be fully felt.

Steph’s jellyfish project called for separating out multiple different molecules to determine which were lethal and which weren’t, in the hunt for those that might prove therapeutic – painstaking laboratory analysis performed without the help of a handy predictive algorithm.

After a short segue at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, probing therapeutic opportunities in Tarantula venom, Steph embarked on a PhD at Griffith University in 2015, in a bid to discover a protein biomarker for exposure to chemical pollution from the cell and blood samples of sea turtles.

By the time she was completing her final thesis to earn her doctorate and play her part in marine conservation, she had some 200,000 data points to work with, and was convinced of the opportunity that AI presents in an increasingly ‘big data’ world.

Steph (right) with research colleagues during her PhD at Griffith University

“When you have too much data it becomes more challenging to derive meaning, so I got really interested in AI and machine learning from that point.”

Having worked in both lab and teaching assistant roles at Griffith throughout her PhD studies, Steph proved her versatility by finding a position as an Environmental Scientist for the City of Gold Coast’s Water and Waste directorate, while simultaneously interning with Griffith’s Institute for Glycomics as a Business Analyst.

She’d previously connected with Datarwe CTO Dr Kelvin Ross at a Cohort event, and kept in touch, so he came knocking when the fast-growing company needed an energetic exponent of Data Science and AI, who could build collaboration with researchers in industry, academia and healthcare.

“It’s really exciting to be working with Datarwe from such an early stage and being a part of the company’s growth. Being in this space has offered up great opportunities such as developing and overseeing the MedTech Program for the new Queensland AI Hub, which is a dual role I’m currently in,” Steph says.

“What’s exciting about AI is that it can provide us with accurate prediction using insights from the medical data we already have access to – so rather than relying on future studies and trials, we can look retrospectively for clues and answers. But in order to extract this meaning, the data needs to be useable, accessible, accurate and secure, which is what we are doing at Datarwe by building the PMDP.”

The Datarwe data science technologies lab at Cohort

Datarwe’s PDMP, which earlier this year received $1.5 million funding from Advance Queensland, works by collecting de-identified patient data from hospital Intensive Care Units’ monitoring devices and clinical notes. The data is securely enriched so it can be used by developers to create tools using AI and ML to develop predictive analytics, which then help health care professionals make timely decisions at the patient’s bedside.

It’s a potentially life-saving platform, especially in the midst of a pandemic, and Steph was eager to inspire innovation, as chair of the inaugural Queensland AI Hub Medical Datathon, held in virtual mode in July.

Staged over two weekends, the event brought together multidisciplinary teams with expertise in data science, ML and AI, with clinicians and medical researchers, as well as the business and student communities, to work with real-world data on new medical applications. The impact has extended well beyond, with many teams continuing to develop their projects to make waves in the world of AI – read more.

“Overall, the last 6 months working at Datarwe and the AI Hub has opened my eyes to the appetite in Queensland, and particularly the Gold Coast, for the kind of advanced technology we are building at Datarwe and supporting through the Hub.

As I have personally experienced, the job opportunities in this space are growing rapidly right here in the GCHKP and Lumina, and I’m glad to be able to support the growth of this important industry for Queensland.”

Connect with Steph