“It is a huge honour and I think it is really nice the recognition not just for myself but for my team who work tirelessly to provide the service we do at Gold Coast University Hospital, and really for health in general, it recognises the whole healthcare community,” Dr Rice says.

“We’re part of an international community, in research and teaching, and in giving back and this benefits our patients first and foremost, and our international reputation means we’re working with most of the multinational companies, many of who are moving to the Gold Coast because they see the benefits of what we are doing and planning in the health and knowledge precinct, it ticks a lot of their boxes.”

For the past two decades, Associate Professor Dr Hal Rice has operated a comprehensive Interventional Neuroradiology service at Gold Coast University Hospital, which he co-founded with colleague Dr Laetitia de Villiers, literally pioneering a new life-saving field of medicine for patients with severe Brain Aneurysms and Acute Ischaemic Stroke.

But as young medical intern, he almost took a more conventional career path as an orthopaedic surgeon, before discovering the then-fledgling field of minimally-invasive surgery – innovation it seems is in his blood (or blood vessels to be very, very precise)!

Hal completed his fellowship in Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology before undertaking a prestigious Neuroradiology Fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai, New York, and the rest is his impressive history of world-class innovation – trialing the latest devices from around the world, delivering highly-specialised training, undertaking world-first robotic procedures, and together with Laetitia, saving lives.

In our video below, Hal explains how they use high-quality imaging to navigate up into the brain through the blood vessels, utilising tiny devices to repair life-threatening damage and working with innovative 3D printed models to train overseas specialists.

Business is also in Hal’s blood – 15 years ago he co-founded the successful QScan Radiology Group, which now operates medical imaging and interventional radiology clinics across Australia. He’s also held Associate Professor roles at both Griffith and Bond Universities for the past 8 years, further demonstrating his strong commitment to cutting-edge clinical research and education, while he joined the board of the Gold Coast Titans in early 2020, and most recently became a member of the Griffith University Council.

Hal and Laetitia co-hosted the 2015 World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic NeuroRadiology on the Gold Coast, bringing 1200 of their specialist colleagues from around the globe to a conference that injected several million dollars into the local economy, and they haven’t stopped since.

In 2020, they successfully performed only the second robotically-assisted aneurysm removal in the world, and have since completed the largest caseload globally for this cutting-edge procedure.

While the pandemic has made training opportunities more difficult, the pair is now ramping up their teaching of overseas physicians from the Asia Pacific, including co-hosting more than 80 colleagues with global medical device company Medtronic next month, in what will be the first medical conference to be held at the new The Langham Gold Coast luxury hotel. And there are more exciting plans to come – watch this space!!

Listen to Dr Rice as he shares his story and vision in the latest episode of Lumina’s HealthTech Talks podcast series and prepare to be inspired!

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The team from Project BioSpine recently invited key stakeholders and supporters to see firsthand the technology that is coming together to ‘augment ability’, with the goal of restoring motor and sensory function in people who’ve sustained a spinal cord injury.

The new research lab provides space to train additional study participants, with a focus on testing and refining the BioSpine cycling therapy, and also provides opportunities to utilise the Armeo Power upper limb robot to target hand and arm function, with room for additional equipment to support core strength and walking gait rehabilitation.

BioSpine is co-led by researcher and study participant Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM and Dr Claudio Pizzolato, and is built on the Personalised Digital Human platform technology developed within the Griffith Centre of Biomedical and Rehabilitation Engineering (GCore) in the Menzies Health Institute Queensland.

Research is supported through principal funder, the Motor Accident Insurance Commision (MAIC), and a Perpetual Impact grant, and key partnerships including Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital/Harvard University, University of Sydney and local film industry company Myriad Studios, who capture big-budget film quality digital scans to create rich and compelling virtual-reality environments for rehabilitation.

BioSpine harnesses the remarkable neuro-plastic potential of the human brain, which enables our nervous system to rewire itself after losing motor and sensory function.

Watch our video below to discover how the BioSpine approach is reimagining rehabilitation after spinal cord injury.

BioSpine utilises a robotic rehabilitation device (such as an ergometer bike) and functional electrical stimulation (FES) of the muscles, paired with a Brain-Computer interface (that reads the electrical activity of the brain to provide ‘thought control’) and an extended-reality environment (to provide sensory feedback for the patient), all integrated and controlled through a personalised digital twin (a neuromusculoskeletal model of the patient incorporating artificial intelligence).

Together with targeted drug therapy, this unique integration of technologies hopes to enable the restoration of neural pathways over time through intensive exercise.

The Gold Coast economy went into the pandemic shock in good shape, having seen jobs and exports grow strongly in the decade to 2021. Employment had been growing at more than 2 percent, almost twice the Queensland and Australian rate, and after the 2020 dive, rebounded to again increase by 2 percent in 2021.

Exports have enjoyed even stronger growth over the last ten years – 4 percent per annum, increasing to $2.38 million in 2021, again at distinctly higher rates than Regional Queensland (3.1%), Queensland (2.9%) and Australia (2.5%).

The 3.4 percent per annum increase in gross value add (GVA), or business productivity, has also been far stronger than average growth across Regional Queensland, Queensland and Australia.

The data points to a diversifying economy, in productive industries, with maturing professional services and technology sectors, according to economist Marcus Brown, of Bull and Bear Economics.

“The Gold Coast has a strong economic base that is turbo-charged by external stimulus from hospitality, tourism, education and service exports,” says Mr Brown, who addressed a recent business breakfast hosted by the City.

“In the short term, GRP is expected to lift from $39 billion to roughly $43 billion in the space of four years (to 2024).

That’s a sizeable bounce back that will bring with it a consequent increase in local jobs from 302,000 to 349,000.

Certainly, this is a level of economic growth well beyond what could be expected for Queensland more broadly.”

The Precinct contributes $3.4 billion in value-add to the Queensland economy and supports 21,000 jobs (2019)