Looking back I was struck how much there was. Examples include:
New AI health accelerator encourages start-ups to work smarter
By Stuart Layt
January 9, 2022 — 8.05pm
The minds behind a new digital health accelerator want to ensure the local industry takes full advantage of the artificial intelligence revolution sweeping the medical practice.
Artificial Intelligence company Max Kelsen has set up a “digital health practice” in Brisbane to connect with developers wanting to enter the AI healthcare space but who do not have the ability to scale up their projects.
Max Kelsen chief executive Nick Therkelsen-Terry said the AI healthcare market was already worth $2 billion in Australia, and was expected to balloon to $150 billion by 2026.
With so much new capital entering the space, there was a lot of potential for error, which was not acceptable in a healthcare setting, he said.
“Obviously there are patients involved, physicians, and we’re asking a machine to make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions, so the risk we’re putting into that system is much higher than, say, deciding what product you should see next to your Amazon purchases,” he said.
“The underlying technology is similar, but the impact if you get it wrong is extremely different.”
Mr Therkelsen-Terry said as a result, regulation was also struggling to keep up with advances in the field.
Dr Navid Saidy, from Max Kelsen, will lead a team of 30 to work with startups and businesses to develop AI projects for the healthcare setting.
More here:
And here:
2022 ‘the year of deep tech’
9:21PM January 9, 2022
“Deep tech” is set to hit mainstream consciousness over the next year, according to former Google executive Sally-Ann Williams.
The chief executive of deep tech incubator Cicada Innovations says while 2021 was the year of software success stories such as Canva and Atlassian, deep tech will win the spotlight in 2022.
Ms Williams said that MedTech innovations such as vaccines, rapid testing, and protective equipment had put deep tech in the global spotlight, as scientific communities globally rushed to address the pandemic and many everyday citizens engaged in scientific discussion for the first time since the moon landing.
But a host of homegrown deep tech companies across sectors such as energy and environment, new materials, and intelligent machines are also achieving world-changing milestones, according to Ms Williams.
The executive expects these deep technologies will become increasingly mainstream due to growing general understanding of and demand for solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, such as the escalating climate crisis.
More here:
And here:
Former gymnast raises $2.5m for mental health app
Ayesha de Kretser Senior Reporter
Jan 9, 2022 – 3.00pm
A wellness app aimed at addressing mental health issues faced by young athletes has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, with increasing support from the lucrative United States market.
iNSPIRETEK, which is valued at $8.5 million, has floated a preliminary valuation exceeding $50 million for its Series A raise, which it intends to commence next month.
Founder and chief executive Annie Flamsteed said the wellness app was designed to address the mental health crisis in sport and help counter the dropout rate among young, burnt-out athletes.
“Athletes like Simone Biles and Serena Williams have been instrumental in putting a spotlight on a systemic problem that clearly needs to be addressed,” said Ms Flamsteed, who is a former elite gymnast.
“Investor interest is high because, rather than focusing on the elite, our program works to build better habits when athletes are young and in grassroots sports. It is an increasingly visible problem that is particularly relevant in places like the US.”
More here:
https://www.afr.com/companies/sport/former-gymnast-raises-2-5m-for-mental-health-app-20220107-p59mji
And here:
Remote clinical trials: here to stay?
Medidata Solutions
Inc
By
Edwin Ng, Senior Vice-President, Asia-Pacific, for Medidata, a Dassault
Systèmes company
Monday, 10 January, 2022
COVID-19 has shed a spotlight on the role of clinical trials in drug and vaccine development, and has also forced Australia’s pharmaceutical and healthcare companies to redesign how these trials are run.
In an era of lockdowns and restricted movement where it may not be desirable for many participants to get to physical sites, the clinical trial industry has had to follow in the footsteps of other healthcare services in the past 18 months, in moving from clinics to the couch so that important research can continue remotely.
This promises many benefits, not least the possibility of shortening timelines for important drug and vaccine development. However, issues of interoperability and data privacy will need to be urgently addressed for it to achieve its full potential in Australia. In fact, interoperability and quality assured technology has been flagged as an area requiring attention for effective and sustainable adoption of virtual health by The Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association1.
Moving clinical trials into a home setting is the next frontier, following on from the shift of other healthcare services out of hospital and clinical settings since the start of the pandemic.
More here:
And here:
Advancing digitally enabled hospital-at-home services
By Dr Sharon Hakkennes*
Friday, 10 December, 2021
Virtual care adoption accelerated dramatically in Australia in the wake of COVID-19. This was driven by the need to minimise the risk of the virus spreading, free up bed capacity for acutely unwell patients, and preserve personal protective equipment (PPE).
One area that has seen substantial growth is hospital-at-home models of care. While Australia has had well-established hospital-at-home services for many years, the pandemic has fuelled further interest in this model and is accelerating the development of new models of hospital-at-home care. Many of the traditional barriers, such as clinician understanding of the relevance of the model and patient concerns about being cared for at home, no longer exist.
Gartner predicts that 40% of healthcare providers will shift 20% of hospital beds to the patient’s home by 2025, by offering digitally enabled hospital-at-home services, improving patient experience and outcomes, and reducing costs.
More here:
And here:
NAB to acquire LanternPay
By Kate Weber on Jan 13, 2022 12:45PM
From Australian fintech.
NAB is set to acquire healthcare claiming and payments platform LanternPay, owned by Australian fintech InLoop, for an undisclosed sum.
The proposed acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, would allow NAB to augment its Health Industry Claims and Payments Service (HICAPS) with LanternPay's technology.
LanternPay's platform is used by the healthcare, disability, insurance and aged care sectors, and was "purpose-built to standardise the claims and payment experience for all providers of services to government and private healthcare schemes," NAB said in a statement.
The bank said that integrating LanternPay with HICAPS would "simplify administration and increase payment options when visiting a healthcare provider."
More here:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nab-to-acquire-lanternpay-574624
And here:
$2M project will enhance telehealth capabilities
A $2 million project led by Monash University aims to improve telehealth delivery for patients, clinicians and caregivers.
The project – funded by the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC) and led by Monash University's Faculty of Information Technology – will deliver user-centred and research-based software solutions to enhance telehealth services such as real-time transcription, smoother integration of personal diagnostic data from medical devices, and better accessibility for the elderly or Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Other participants include Monash Health, researchers from the University of Melbourne, unidentified industry partners, Healthdirect Australia and the Victorian Department of Health.
The focus will be on mental health and palliative care, and – once developed – the improved video telehealth solutions will be available to Victorian clinics using Healthdirect Australia Video Call.
More here
https://itwire.com/business-it/%242m-project-will-enhance-telehealth-capabilities.html
And here:
AI is here to stay, but can it help fix covid?
By Fran Molloy
The pandemic saw remarkable advances in health technology, as governments and institutions fast tracked funding and decision making to identify, control, treat and prevent covid.
Hundreds of these projects used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to solve the myriad problems that emerged during covid. Many of them were tasked with uncovering patterns in radiology images, patient demographics, symptoms and histories, to inform diagnoses and predict patient outcomes.
But despite the hype, evidence has emerged suggesting that almost all of these projects were flawed. In the face of a pandemic, AI often turned out to be a solution in search of a problem.
That’s not to say we should write AI off, says Dr Stefan Hajkowocz, Principal Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61 and author of best-selling book Global Megatrends, which predicts that AI is one of the digital technologies that will become critical to most industries in coming decades, along with data science, computer vision and natural language processing.
More here:
https://medicalrepublic.com.au/ai-is-here-to-stay-but-can-it-help-fix-covid-2/60842
And here:
‘Let the bots do the busy work’: what’s next in tech
James Fielding, Craig Cooper, Philip Woolff and Jason Waller
Four Australian small-cap and start-up executives give their take on what we might see from the medtech industry in 2022, as we work towards “living with covid-19”
As the world becomes ever more confident with digital-led healthcare, 2022 will see a flurry of adoption of clever ways to improve and track your health.
The need for in-person appointments with qualified professionals will never fade but there is so much opportunity to let the smart devices of our world do the data collecting and disease catching and let clinicians focus on what they should be focused on: their patients.
If what you need is a quick check of your child’s cough at night? Whip out your phone. Need that covid test before you jump on the plane? Plug it in. Feeling a bit off and thinking it might be your diet? All sorted by mail.
Some professionals fear the transition to digital and that is entirely understandable as there’s nothing more important than clinical confidence that you’re doing the best by your patient. That needs to be taken into account at a higher level and the focus must be on people getting the best care they can in the most effective way possible. Let the bots do the busy work and clinicians do the good work.
More here:
https://medicalrepublic.com.au/let-the-bots-do-the-busy-work-whats-next-in-tech/60784
As you can see we have all sorts of stages of development, all sorts of tech from all over he country at all sorts of scale with all sorts of backers.
The lot all arrived in a single week last week.
Maybe there is some hope? I note the absence of any specific mention of the ADHA!
Enjoy reading about them all!
David.
2 comments:
Promises, promises.
Nothing much has changed in the Digital Heal space since Eric Topol wrote The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care in 2013.
Look at the similar books Amazon suggests:
https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Destruction-Medicine-Digital-Revolution/dp/0465061834
The real advances in healthcare have been going on in the biomedical world; new diagnostic tools, new treatments, not with the "client experience" i.e. the interactions with the healthcare system. There's some tinkering - tele-health and e-prescriptions, but that's hardly transformative, more driven by the realities of the pandemic.
I had my first hip replacement in 2007 and my third last November. My experience with the system was exactly the same, once in NSW, the other in the ACT. A MyHr was totally useless, there is no history in it and no place for history.
The idea that you don't have to remember your history is patently absurd. On presenting to the hospital for the operation, they go though all the history you have provided on the from they have you fill in when registering for the procedure.
I also had a battery of tests the week before and had a PCR test the day before (this was before the mess created by omicron and an unprepared government)
They ask you to confirm everything you have already told you - and they give you a cognitive ability test to make sure you still think straight.
On leaving the hospital I was given a discharge summary which contained two sections 1. what they had done and 2. my status as I left the building - i.e. what medications I was on and what I was capable of doing - how far I could walk etc.
Within three days the second part was out of date. So by the time I saw a physio and my GP, the discharge summary was irrelevant.
IMHO, even if the MYHR did everything the government claims, it would still be a waste of time. The only useful things was telehealth (I asked my GP for some more pain killers - in case I needed more than the hospital had provided) and e-prescribing - my wife was able to go into the pharmacy and collect them, after I forwarded her the QR code. As it was I only needed a couple, the rest will go back to the pharmacy for disposal.
Needs dashboards, 2022 is the year of the MyHR dashboards
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