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News

Filed Under: HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY Tagged With: AI, health innovation, healthtech, image-guided surgery, incisionless surgery, virtual reality

Gold Coast Health leads in healthcare innovation

From an Australian public hospital-first delivering ‘Incisionless Surgery’ to transform the lives of people with tremors, to a new solution to remotely support people with chronic disease who’d otherwise need to revisit the emergency department and a pilot program harnessing virtual reality technology for pain management that is now going statewide, Gold Coast Health is leading the way in healthcare innovation.

Neville Waterstrom drinking a glass of water without shaking for the first time in years

With Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) the first public hospital, and only the third hospital in Australia, to introduce trans-cranial MRI-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) technology, Gold Coast Health is happy to celebrate instant success – almost as happy as 74-year-old patient Neville Waterstrom.

“I’ve been experiencing Essential Tremors for the last 30 years. It’s been incredibly difficult to do even simple tasks like feed myself, and drinking out of a glass was just not a possibility,” Mr Waterstrom says.

This procedure has completely changed my life.

“I haven’t been able to write properly for at least 20 years, and now – it’s just amazing. I can drink a glass of water again, and this is just one hour after the procedure. The joy and privilege I feel is immeasurable as the first person in Queensland to receive this treatment. I just want to thank everybody that has been involved, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The so-called ‘Incisionless Surgery” is a non-invasive procedure which uses MRI to locate and treat areas of the brain that trigger symptoms of movement disorders – patients don’t require anaesthetic, are awake during surgery and can potentially be discharged the very next day.

For Gold Coast Health Medical Director Neurology, Dr Sam Heshmat the service launch was a moment of pride in the teamwork that brought different specialists together to change lives.

“To see a significant change in a patient’s functional capacity within a few hours, to see them gain back some independence after so many years, it’s just priceless,” says Dr Heshmat.

“This service is unique as it involves a group of clinicians from different specialties. Neurologists, neurosurgeons, and our radiology colleagues all play a role within each patient’s journey. We also have a Nurse Navigator, which is a newly created position specifically for this service.”

This cross-disciplinary team approach is key to how Gold Coast Health is embracing a future-focused culture of patient-centric innovation – bringing different types of clinicians together with data-scientists, software developers, analysts, AI and automation experts and external partners to lead solutions for Gold Coast patients, with potential to take them into hospitals nationally and even globally.

Sandip Kumar

Leading an ambitious transformation agenda since his arrival three years ago, Executive Director Strategy, Transformation and Major Capital and Chief Digital Officer Sandip Kumar, recently told Hospitals Management Asia that Gold Coast Health was committed to a ‘Smart Hospital’ driven by a seamless and integrated digital health environment.

“At Gold Coast Health we have branded our ServiceNow platform – CareNow. The idea is that we are using technology to enable care anywhere and care now,” explains Mr Kumar.

An example is staff being able to take smartphone photos of wounds, securely upload them to a patient’s integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) for clinical consultants to make rapid care decisions. This pioneering application won a 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award of Excellence for Better Health and Wellbeing Services.

Another is the digitisation of patient lists. A program nicknamed Kirra has digitised outpatient appointments, cutting time to book a single appointment from 5 minutes to 60 secs, and avoiding scheduling issues and wasted appointments.

Billed as intelligent notetaking, ‘Ambient Listening’ is being explored to use natural language processing (NLP), a form of AI, to listen in on doctor-patient consultations, create summaries of relevant conversations, and generate alerts for services such as X-rays if required, without retaining any audio files.

Innovation is occurring across remote patient monitoring and wearables, workflow and demand management processes, communication automation, medical imaging, models of care, robotics and augmented reality, and more.

VR study participant Atla Seitshiro with Hannah Kennedy and Darren Doherty from the Interdisciplinary Persistent Pain Centre

One exciting innovation is a Virtual Reality program for pain management, led by Darren Doherty, specialist pain physiotherapist and the team at the Interdisciplinary Persistent Pain Clinic, including occupational therapist Hannah Kennedy.

“What we’re attempting to do is supercharge pain education for our patients,” says Mr Doherty, who says the fun program also has a rehabilitation element.

VR provides an immersive leaning environment, that quickly empowers patients to adapt their behaviours, according to Ms Kennedy.

“What we’re seeing is patients seem to be really engaged with the education, relating that to their situation and really quickly are keen to make changes to activities, movements and their day-to-day life,” says Ms Kennedy.

With the success of a six-month trial, and powerful learnings from participating in the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct’s Clinician Entrepreneurship Change Agents Program (CECAP), Kennedy had the confidence to successfully pitch the program to Queensland Health for statewide roll-out across specialist pain clinics.

Innovations like Incisionless Surgery and the VR for Pain Management program have an obvious tech component, but behind-the-scenes process innovation is also utilising transformative technology for high impact.

Australian technology company FOXO partnered with Gold Coast Health to launch the digitally-enabled Rapid Access Service in General Medicine, leveraging FOXO’s market-leading expertise in secure unified communications, in what is a game-changer for reducing emergency department readmissions of patients with chronic conditions.

Discharging patients receive a take-home card, with a customised QR code to link them to a simple gateway to future communication with healthcare staff, with no need to download an app, and a simple, password-free yet highly-secure sign on process, incorporating two-factor authentication.

The user-friendly platform enables secure messaging, sharing of documents and images as well as video-calling and interfaces with Microsoft Teams to ensure ‘frictionless’ communication and hopefully avoid more than 1000 emergency department re-admissions each year.

“Through the integration of FOXO’s comprehensive communication platform, our health service stands at the forefront of modern healthcare delivery and accessibility. Our focus on improved patient access and reducing Emergency Department visits underscores our commitment to elevating healthcare outcomes, ” says Mr Kumar.

“Gold Coast Health has also built up a reputation for innovation. People have seen how we have transformed and how the industry speaks about us. If you are a beacon for innovation, and transforming for purpose, it becomes easier to attract talent from across private and public sectors.”

July 24, 2024 By Kathy Kruger

Filed Under: BUSINESS, People of the Precinct, TECHNOLOGY

Spinal Cord Injury rehabilitation technology steps toward commercialisation

Griffith University’s BioSpine team, led by Dr Claudio Pizzolato, has won a coveted place in a health tech accelerator program that drives commercialisation of start-up technologies in the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct (GCHKP).

Dr Pizzolato will join the intensive 14-week LuminaX (LX) program, together with BioSpine Coordinator Kyle Mullholland and with support from co-investigator Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM, Griffith’s commercialisation office, Griffith Enterprise,  and an almost 30-strong multi-disciplinary GCORE research team, who continue to advance the novel rehabilitation technology through a second round of clinical studies.

LuminaX helps validate and commercialise early-stage, high-growth activities applying tech or AI solutions to healthcare, medtech and wellness, and draws start-ups from around Australia through a competitive application process.

Dr Dinesh Palipana being cyber-scanned to create a virtual reality avatar.

BioSpine is a digitally-enabled rehabilitation system for spinal cord injury (SCI) that brings together non-invasive technologies – assistive exercise devices, electrical stimulation, a brain computer interface that uses AI to help interpret a participant’s intention to move and virtual reality to create an immersive rehab environment, all controlled through an advanced digital twin.

Through coordinating this powerful combination of technologies, BioSpine seeks to harness neuroplasticity to stimulate residual neurons in paralysed individuals and restore sensory and motor function.

As research and clinical studies progress, Dr Pizzolato is eager to take a parallel focus on the pathway to translating BioSpine into the clinic through commercial investment.

 

“We are extremely excited to have been selected for LuminaX,” Dr Pizzolato said.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to fast-track the translation of our BioSpine technology for every person that might benefit from it.

We look forward to building our network by getting to know all the LuminaX mentors and learning how to pitch for investment and scale globally.

Our team is backed by Griffith Enterprise (the University’s commercialisation arm), a demonstration of the commitment of Griffith to making an impact.”

BioSpine rehabilitation study participant.

Last year BioSpine was boosted with a $3.8m grant from the Queensland Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC), following initial MAIC funding of over $2.2m in 2019. The grant supports expansion of the protocol to include direct electrical stimulation of the spine, as well as expanded clinical studies across a larger cohort of participants and continued co-development and design with the goal of making BioSpine clinic-ready.

Director of Griffith Enterprise Dr Mark Ashton said that while BioSpine is complex ‘deep tech’, there are a number of different commercial opportunities.

“Bringing BioSpine into widespread clinical practice in a global market is a massive undertaking, however Griffith Enterprise is working closely with the research team to protect intellectual property and seek commercial partners for the technology,” Dr Ashton said.

“The additional support from the LuminaX program and mentors, access to venture capital networks and the peer support of being part of an entrepreneurial program are really invaluable for the team and our commercialisation efforts.

We are excitted to support the BioSpine team through the process.”

Now in its fourth year, the LX program, delivered by Cohort, is supported by Major Partners: Economic Development Queensland, the City of Gold Coast, and Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC), alongside Griffith University, Mater Hospital, QLD AI Hub, and IntelliHQ.

Backed by the Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (VCDF) program, participants will have a unique opportunity to connect with some of the largest VC funds and investors in Australia.

Griffith University’s Vice President of Industry and External Engagement, Professor Bronwyn Harch, said having a successful health tech accelerator in the GCHKP gave researchers easy access to a sophisticated and powerful innovation ecosystem.

“Last year we had two teams from Griffith University participate in LuminaX, both focused on technologies that benefit children,” Professor Harch said.

“One team. AlignUs, is successfully commercialising surgeries for children with complex hip deformities, supported by Griffith’s Advanced Design and Prototyping Technologies Institute (ADaPT), while the team behind YourTrack, which actually won the LuminaX 2023 top award, is rolling out neurodevelopmental assessment tools to help children in remote, Indigenous and disadvantaged communities, and has since secured $6.5m in additional government funding.”

“These outcomes demonstrate the importance of gaining industry knowledge and connections through innovation programs, and as a leading research initiative, BioSpine has great scope to significantly extend Griffith’s impact globally.”

Approximately 20,800 Australians are living with SCI, with 350-400 people sustaining a new injury each year. BioSpine also has potential to help individuals suffering other types of neurotrauma.

May 14, 2024 By Gemma Bull

Filed Under: BUSINESS, People of the Precinct, TECHNOLOGY

$20m funding boon for GCHKP stars BiVACOR

BiVACOR, the medical device company supported by world-leading Griffith University research, has received a $20m funding boost in its quest to produce the world’s first total artificial heart (TAH).

The grant will support further clinical work on their TAH (which soon begins first-in-human trials) as well as development of a wireless power source for the device.

BiVACOR’s grant is part of a $50m Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF) award to the Artificial Heart Frontiers Program, a research consortium that includes Griffith University’s GCHKP-based Mechanobiology Lab.

Led by Associate Professor Michael Simmonds, the lab supports of three life-changing cardiac devices supported by the MRFF grant: BiVACOR’s TAH, an implant to support a failing natural heart and a rapid-life support device.

Read the full story here and check out the video below on why BiVACOR chose the GCHKP!

April 23, 2024 By Gemma Bull

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From Research to Reality: GCHKP Talent Leads the LuminaX 2025 Cohort

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