healthcare Archives - �鶹ԭ�� Australia & New Zealand News Center

Bringing Parkinson’s Research into the Digital Era

Simon Grace — Tue, 11 May 2021 05:51:01 +0000

For many people, our daily morning routines are quite simple to the point of monotony. We get dressed, have a shower, make breakfast and leave the house to start our days.

Although for people with Parkinson’s disease, these simple tasks we take for granted can be debilitatingly difficult. Parkinson’s affects approximately 1 in 500 people in New Zealand and about 1 percent of people aged over 60. While there is no cure, getting medication dosages right can significantly improve symptoms, particularly the sometimes-violent tremors that Parkinson’s is typically associated with.

Using technology to track symptoms

Keeping track of tremors is an effective means of tracking the severity of the disease and adjusting medications accordingly, although this process can be inefficient; relying on manual check-ups that can leave patients waiting for weeks.

That’s where technology comes in. Led by neurologist Dr Yun Hwang at Gosford Hospital on Australia’s Central Coast, a team of registrars and clinicians have teamed up with health-tech provider Digital Aged Care—part of enterprise software giant �鶹ԭ��—to develop a machine learning (ML) platform designed to improve the lives of Parkinson’s patients.

The system being developed uses ML to analyse thousands of images of spirals, drawn by patients suffering various tremors (of those diagnosed with Parkinson’s and other illnesses).

Machine learning and medication

These images are used to train an ML algorithm, so that it can automatically detect the severity of the tremor and whether it’s Parkinson’s-related, giving physicians a clear idea of which medications to prescribe or adjust existing dosages.

“I’ve been working within the Parkinson’s space for some years now and one of the biggest challenges has always been around monitoring symptom fluctuations during the day,” Dr Yun explains.

“We’re not there all the time to check up on the patient, which is where AI can be very useful.”

It’s not the first-time spirals have been used in Parkinson’s research, as they offer a good indication of how intense the tremors—and thus the disease—can be, especially when paired with ML.

Although spirals are just the beginning for Dr Yun and �鶹ԭ��, as the project’s next phase involves using smart watches to provide real-time insight into Parkinson’s severity. When wearing these watches, patients can draw spirals in the same way, with the watch using an accelerometer and gyroscope to generate a 3D model of the tremor, providing even greater insight into severity.

The team is also looking to rig the watch to track tremors 24/7, showing progress visually through graphs that map the times when patients are ‘on or off’ in terms of the tremor’s severity.

�鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform

While it’s a compelling project, the team isn’t looking to do everything on their own. �鶹ԭ�� is making the application open source, to inspire collaboration and reach as many patients as possible.

“We’re also going to give the platform to the Open Source University and developer communities, so that people can join us in building these new innovations collaboratively,” says �鶹ԭ�� Digital Aged Care co-founder Simon Grace.

“We encourage all organisations and individuals to contribute and join our open source ecosystem so that we can help break down barriers for all people suffering from Parkinson’s disease.”

“Building these innovations only takes days to weeks, thanks to the easy to use tools and templates on the �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform”.

This article Health Information New Zealand.

To find out more about the �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform (BTP), visit the

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Healthcare innovation in action: Device Technologies

Fred Azis-Laranjo — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 05:08:19 +0000

A digital transformation at medical supplies company Device Technologies has saved more than 50,000 hours of administrative time in just one year. Read how tech is making health care smarter, faster and safer.

Just two months after Device Technologies drew up a COVID-19 disaster plan, its business changed dramatically. Demand from hospitals for its usual products – surgical instruments, orthopaedic implants, robotics and the like – plummeted as elective surgery was banned.

Adapting at speed

Instead, the company was deluged with orders for ventilators and personal protective equipment. “We shifted our business model extremely quickly,” says CEO Michael Trevaskis.

Fortunately, the rapid pivot was simplified by a decision taken three years earlier to transform Australia’s biggest independent supplier of medical technology into a digital leader in the healthcare sector.

Michelle Stewart, general manager of marketing and digital, headed the project, starting with the supply chain.

Using �鶹ԭ��’s Customer Experience platform, Device Technologies introduced a surgery booking portal, eliminating the need for phone calls and several data entry steps – instead allowing surgeons to input into an app what equipment they needed.

Putting patients first

After just one year in operation, the portal has saved more than 50,000 hours of administrative time. As well as reducing the risk of human error, it has freed up more than 100 sales staff across the surgical divisions of Device Technologies, allowing them to spend more time with surgeons improving patient outcomes.

“It puts patients ahead of paperwork,” says Stewart.

It has also allowed sales staff to input surgery bookings on the go on mobile devices rather than entering data after business hours.

The company’s next biggest change is an ecommerce platform, giving customers access to a digital catalogue of more than 70,000 products and the ability to track their purchases and deliveries anytime.

Total transparency

“We’re inviting them into the business with total transparency,” says Stewart, noting that a trial launch to a small group of customers shows they are three times more likely to research product details through the portal and are logging on outside business hours.

Trevaskis says the digital innovations will allow Device Technologies to continue to expand.

Five years ago, 80 per cent of its customer base was Australian hospitals and doctors. Now, the company supplies equipment to veterinary practices and aged care homes, as well as hospitals across South-East Asia.

“We couldn’t do this without technology; it’s far too labour intensive,” he says. “Health care has to evolve into more digitised services and COVID-19 has fast-tracked this.”

To discover more stories of �鶹ԭ�� innovation in action, visit

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AI Is Top Game-Changing Technology in the Healthcare Industry

Susan Galer — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 23:57:40 +0000

Of the many ingredients that go into quality healthcare, comprehensive patient data is close to the top of the list.

No one knows this more than Mayur Saxena, CEO and founder of . Saxena created his startup while pursuing his doctorate degree at Columbia University and working at a healthcare company conducting clinical trials on new medication.

He is energised by the plethora of opportunities to improve healthcare using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

“Patient data is notoriously disorganised and complex,” Saxena said. “With machine learning, healthcare professionals can organise that information to better understand the disease of every patient and reach them faster with interventions that improve their lives. It’s an amazing feeling when you talk with someone who’s recovered from an illness because they received the right care.”

The idea behind Droice is to make messy data neat so people can spend less time organising it and more time analysing it.

Insights Drive Personalised Patient Care

The startup has collected data from 50 million patients while working with healthcare providers, payers, and government organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Healthcare professionals in hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, medical device manufacturing, and insurance rely on Droice Labs’ natural language understanding (NLU) technology. NLU makes sense of patient information in multiple languages from anywhere, such as electronic medical records (EMR), insurance claims, research reports, and medical devices.

“Our machine learning system takes all the data about an individual into account and breaks it down so that a doctor, pharmaceutical scientist, or healthcare insurer can understand patients better and faster,” explained Saxena. “Instead of repetitive, disparate, one-on-one diagnoses and follow-up care, we’re automating personalised care for a much larger patient population. With shared insights across a large patient population, physicians can chart disease progress and prescribe the best treatment plan. Clinical research into new drugs that took years could be reduced to days or weeks.”

Saxena said that one hospital reduced the amount of time it took to arrive at an appropriate patient diagnosis by over 20 percent.

�鶹ԭ��.iO Foundries Opens Up World of Healthcare Opportunities

Droice Labs recently participated in the latest healthcare-focused accelerator program at �鶹ԭ��.iO Foundry New York. It was one of seven up-and-coming startups working with hospital system providers, employee health and wellness solutions, medical devices, and health IT.

“We’ve learned so much about customers in the healthcare industry from �鶹ԭ��’s sales and product teams,” said Saxena. “These large organizations have unique needs, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to partner with �鶹ԭ��, a company with a massive presence across so many geographies. We’ve gained valuable insights about strategic global selling and scaling our technology to meet the unique requirements of these customers.”

The Droice Labs machine learning platform is .

Turning Long-Time Passion into Thriving Startup

Droice Labs reflects Saxena’s long-time personal and career commitment to healthcare. After earning his undergraduate degree in bio-engineering and biomedical engineering, he worked in high-performance computing in Singapore before arriving in the U.S. That is when he acted on his passion, exploring how AI and machine learning can help improve patient care and potentially eradicate disease.

“We’re looking at data from hundreds of thousands of patients a day, helping improve their care pathways across the healthcare system,” said Saxena. “We have the technology to work with patient data at scale. I’m most excited about working together with recognised healthcare experts using state-of-the-art technology to address major challenges in this complicated, regulated industry.”

Digitally Trustworthy Strategy at Droice Labs

In an environment where patient concerns and regulations around data control continue to increase, Saxena emphasised his company’s strategy of digital trust.

“Everything we do is designed to respect individual patient privacy,” explained Saxena. “We don’t possess related identifying data on patients, and we remove any identifiers. Working in a mission-critical environment like healthcare brings a set of responsibilities. If there is a population suffering from disease, and by looking at their information we can partner with healthcare providers to help make their quality of life better, that’s what we’ll do. But we don’t participate in business models targeted to specific individuals.”

Saxena expected his company’s rapid growth trajectory to continue, and it was easy to see why. According to Gartner’s 2020 CIO Survey, AI is the healthcare industry’s top game-changing technology. Analysts 75 percent of healthcare delivery organizations will invest in an AI capability to explicitly improve either operational performance or clinical outcomes by 2021.

This article first appeared on the Global �鶹ԭ�� News Centre.

Registration for �鶹ԭ��PHIRE NOW Australia and New Zealand is now open. To get your free access today, .

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COVID-19’s Impact on Workforce, Supply Chain, and Patient Engagement

Simon Grace — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 04:08:23 +0000

We are living under extraordinary circumstances and bearing the brunt of this crisis is healthcare. The public sector is under tremendous strain, elective surgeries have been cut, and other healthcare providers are still awaiting the full impact of this global pandemic.

In Australia, our healthcare has been reasonably prepared for COVID-19. Compared to other nations, we have significant coverage of ICU infrastructure and specialists, and we have a wealth of great hospital leadership supported by strong talent pools. This has been complemented by the Australia public showing diligence in terms of limiting exposure and acting intelligently, rather than going outside to protest isolation.

Healthcare has been very responsive – gearing up with thousands of nurses to assist with potential spikes in infection and resource shortages. Healthcare providers have upskilled staff across their organisations in terms of COVID-19 response, have created pathways to onboard thousands of workers into new roles, and provided telehealth options wherever possible to limit risks and ensure people remain safe.

Intelligently Adapting To New Models of Healthcare
In early April, I spoke with chief evangelist for �鶹ԭ�� Analytics and �鶹ԭ�� Leonardo, Shailendra Kumar. and digital aged care in this time of isolation. Digital aged care combines data for smart devices and applies machine learning to help care providers and family members by mitigating risks and ensuring the right care for users – such as enabling remote wound care.

Looking further out in the industry, telehealth is important for people needing to access healthcare remotely. However, the speed and severity of COVID-19 demonstrated how underprepared some healthcare providers are in terms of capacity and training in terms of providing digital healthcare.

Now is the time to explore possibilities in terms of new models of care, including telehealth – particularly its limitations and an understanding of current online services. There is a wealth of tools, resources, and processes for online care available. It is important healthcare providers offer staff the right technology and support to keep them safe and productive during this crisis. Adopting all tools is as dangerous for business continuity and patient outcomes, as adopting nothing at all.

Staff talent is vital right now as people are the key to enabling more digital transformation across the healthcare sector. The technology can only support and streamline the capabilities of employees, so education is paramount. Healthcare workers need to feel supported at this time, particularly as they’re at the frontline managing patients and adjusting to their needs.

Patient engagement can be challenging, especially when healthcare is being administered digitally. �鶹ԭ�� is currently offering free patient experience management though . This allows healthcare providers to automate emails and surveys to gauge patients’ sentiment, requirements and preferences. And, with Qualtrics’ Text IQ capability, providers don’t need to sift through 1000 essays from patients, but rather see the overall sentiment and drill into critical responses.

Transparency and Agility in Supply Chain & Workforce
Communication is vital right now – both internally with staff and externally with patients. With intelligent communication and analytics tools, healthcare providers can better understand the environment in which they’re operating and better plan in terms of workforce and supply allocation. This allows our industry to move with greater agility and be more resilient during challenging circumstances.

. By using the construction company was able to quickly develop of a temporary hospital outside New York City and source much-needed beds for treating those with COVID-19. Considering how in-demand hospital beds are during this pandemic, this was an incredible feat only made possible cloud-based platforms that offer such extensive visibility across supply networks.

Transparency has always been an important business benefit of ERP and Workforce Management platforms. However, being able to communicate and co-ordinate in real-time is vital when news is developing quickly and responses must be timely.

In response to the huge shifts we are seeing globally across industries, �鶹ԭ�� are hosting a series of virtual forums called for the second edition in this series, going live on August 6^th 2020.

�鶹ԭ�� is here to help and provide assistance for any business struggling to digitally transform and adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances.

Our episode further explored the ideas I addressed here, looking at the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers, supply chains, and patient engagement. We also looked at the intelligent technology solutions that can help mitigate risks across these key industry stakeholders. from the healthcare session of 2020 Adaptive Strategies in a Changed World.

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