TECHNOLOGY - Gold Coast Health & Knowledge Precinct

LuminaX accelerates technology for patients and healthcare workers

As COVID-19 accelerates the digital health revolution, the inaugural LuminaX health tech accelerator program, delivered by Cohort Innovation Space to support 15 ambitious founders with 10 start-up businesses, could not have been better timed to ride a wave of health and tech sector interest and growing consumer demand.

Running an intensive in-person program over 14 weeks during a pandemic, was no mean feat in itself!

Patients and hard-working healthcare workers were front and centre, as the 10 LuminaX teams made their passionate pitches to solve health problems and potentially save lives during an upbeat demo-day event, with hearing impaired founder Elliot Miller taking out top prize for his gamified auditory training program that has the potential to assist 430 million hearing-impaired people worldwide.

Drawing on his own experience after receiving a Cochlear hearing implant, Elliot realised that this amazing device and Australian innovation success, was just the start of his hearing journey – he needed to train his brain to adapt to an auditory world, and existing training programs were simply inadequate. Hearoes was born.

“Receiving the implant was like being given a car, but without ever having driven a car before, let alone having a driver’s license,” Elliot told the audience.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Games Design and the support of clinicians, Elliot has brought a fellow designer onboard and their initial gamified and modular product has already attracted 1,000 active consumer users in a month, while almost 50 clinical users have also signed on. Queensland Health has supported the proof-of-concept, purchasing 25 program licenses for $92,000, ahead of a $500,000 seed funding round.

Health and economic costs from hearing loss are estimated at $41b per annum in Australia alone and the program is proving to be a universal solution that cuts across languages and can help people with different types of hearing loss. The two-pronged (B2C and B2B) business model targets both end-users and the healthcare industry, with a combined annual revenue forecast of $101m by 2026.

“We’re already building a world where people with hearing loss can achieve their full potential,” Elliott enthused.

Cohort and CoSpaces CEO Ben Howe said the accelerator’s success was built on the wealth of expertise they were able to bring together from across the Precinct to assist the start-ups with 400 hours of coaching, with the 30 mentors representing the brightest industry and clinical minds, including eight clinicians from Gold Coast Health.

Health is a hard industry in which to innovate, so it is has been great to see teams who are not only motivated to solve big problems and build great businesses, but who genuinely care about helping others in need.

From an acute care medical research data program, to an online platform preparing children to cope with medical procedures, programs to enhance medical and healthcare training, and an online health and wellness program for those with disabilities, the solutions developed by the ten teams have already attracted almost $1m in funding and seen 8 new jobs added across the group during the accelerator period.

Taylor Hobbs founder of Comfort Quest took out the LuminaX AI Prize for his platform that aims to take the anxiety out of medical procedures and hospital admissions and which has already attracted partnerships with the Queensland Children’s Hospital and the Meg Foundation.

Queensland Minister for the Environment, Great Barrier Reef, Science and Youth Affairs, Meaghan Scanlon MP, with the female founding team members

The other participants were:

Able Digital Wellness – an online community and digital wellness platform designed to improve the lives and health of those living with a disability.
Beyond the Clinic – A two-sided marketplace that empowers patients to take their health into their own hands, whilst providing doctors with data to analyse patient outcomes.
Datarwe – An acute care medical research data platform, enabling medical researchers to develop next-generation artificial intelligence clinical diagnostic tools and technologies.
Edify Medical – A new digital ecosystem designed to break down the barriers of language, cost, and access to information that creates healthcare inequality across the globe.
Virtual Psychologist – A psychology and counselling business that delivers text-based mental health services by qualified professional staff through a global IT platform.
Bundle of Rays – Immersive learning tools such as VR and AR to deliver education and training within the health care space.
Oncana – An integrated digital health and wellness experience that bridges the gap between treatment and care for people living with and beyond cancer.
Fwards – A digital platform that provides clinical nurses the tools to connect, reflect and grow together, aiming to improve burnout and turnover within the nursing sector

LuminaX was delivered in partnership with the Queensland AI Hub and IntelliHQ and with the support of the Queensland and Australian governments. Applications for the next program will open in January 2022.

Filed Under: BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY Tagged With: AI, artificial intelligence, Silverpond

AI pioneers Silverpond expand their pool of influence into the Precinct

One of Australia’s pioneering AI and machine learning companies, Melbourne-based Silverpond, is moving a team into Cohort to take advantage of Queensland opportunities for AI particularly in the utility industries, and the emerging health-AI ecosystem on offer in the Precinct.

Having a long-standing relationship with fellow industry innovators Datarwe, a data-driven technology company based out of a data-lab in Cohort, Silverpond will look to steady expansion through easy access to existing and new clients and a pool of local talent.

When Silverpond established 13 years ago, the AI world looked a whole lot smaller – the company evolved from software development and realised they’d need artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) to make sense of an increasingly digitised physical world.

Being early adopters of AI and ML made them a big fish in a small Australian pond, and they understood that a platform on which to build applications for clients would make projects easier, so they came up with their own – HighLighter was built to intelligently enable ‘detection workflows’ through applying deep learning (advanced machine learning) to manage detections of interest from incoming sensor data.

It is now a subscription cloud or self-hosted service to enable technology and operations teams to gain more insight from their data, while Silverpond’s data scientists and software engineers work with energy utilities and other large asset managers such as mines, as well as the health and medical sector, to develop enterprise-level solutions.

Silverpond CEO Jonathan Chang explains that HighLighter detects, measures, predicts and automates.

“We’re working with utilities such as Powercor and Energy Queensland to help improve the inspection of the pole and wire assets, helping to reduce the risks that contribute to dangers such as bushfires. The AI works with human inspectors to help identify where field teams first need to pay attention.” Jonathan explains.

“Similarly, this approach of improving the way we work through AI, has been used to improve the detection of illegal poaching on wildlife reserves, and we’re now working with the Australian Institute for Marine Science to survey fish populations in our tropical waters.

From the macro (i.e. satellite image) to a micro image in a lab, whether it be using still or video imagery, radiology, 2D and 3D scans or heatmaps, we can apply the same approaches.”

Defect inspection of electricity crossarm in Silverpond’s AI powered platform HighLighter

With an existing Queensland energy client to service, consolidating staff into the Precinct makes good business sense, and for a company that has invested heavily in driving skills and growth in the AI/ML ecosystem, it’s a logical step to grow within our emerging AI in healthcare hub.

“We’ve partnered with Kelvin Ross, Chief Technology Officer for Datarwe over a number of years on programs like Women in AI,” says Jonathan.

“We’re still an emerging community within the broader IT industry and there is a lot of room for education of businesses and the general community about the opportunities and ethics of AI and ML, and a growing demand to skill up the next-generation of specialised professionals.”

Silverpond, a founding member of Responsible AI Australia, regularly runs events and workshops to build the AI/ML ecosystem, advocates to government on policy and industry capability, hosts a small co-working space in Melbourne; and undertakes an annual survey and analysis on the state of the growing sector.

“We’re going to fit right into the collaborative environment at Cohort and within the Precinct, and are looking forward to being involved in events, mentoring, potential research partnerships and also taking on local interns, as well as broader engagement with the Queensland AI Hub.”

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.