Health

Follow your heart

Cardiologist and digital health expert Dr Clara Chow is using smart technology to keep patients heart-healthy

Clara Chow, cardiologist

When Clara Chow was on her educational journey to becoming a leading cardiologist (a doctor specialising in the treatment of heart disease), she says the idea of studying computer science would not have occurred to her. “I thought that must have been the most boring subject ever,” she says.

And yet today, as the Academic Director of the Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC), digital tech is not only central to her work, but Clara even occasionally lectures computer science students and participates in tutorials about digital health and using health data. Clara’s first foray into digital health started with a simple text-messaging program. Clara and her colleagues at WARC – established by the University of Sydney with the Western Sydney Local Health District – noticed patients who had been treated for heart disease were returning to hospital too soon. “We found the need to support them after they were discharged from hospital,” she explains.

They started sending text messages to the patients to remind them of simple heart health steps, like checking blood pressure.

“The patients that got the program achieved lower cholesterol, they were more likely to quit smoking, more likely to be active,” says Clara. “Even though it was such a simple intervention it was really effective.”

The healthcare of the future needs people with a high level of digital literacy” Clara Chow Cardiologist

At-home health assistant

Now Clara and her colleagues at WARC have taken it up a notch – developing software that can receive data from patients at home, via wearable sensors such as activity, blood pressure and heart-rate monitors.

The software, which is still in development, then uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tailor healthcare tips, advice and directives to the patient, communicated through an app in their smartphone. The software is called MICA (My Intelligent Cardiac Assistant) and in 2019 WARC received a one-million-dollar grant from Google to help develop the project, including Google-led tech training. Google AI experts will also be involved in developing the technology.

“The healthcare of the future needs to have people with a high level of digital literacy,” Clara says. – Gemma Chilton

Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, University of Sydney PhD in Public Health, University of Sydney

Director, Cardiovascular Division, The George Institute for Global Health

Lend a hand

Passionate about helping people, Mahonri Owen is drawing on both STEM skills and Māori knowledge to develop a brain-controlled prosthetic hand

Mahonri Owen, Robotics Engineer

Mahonri Owen says he didn’t get the greatest grades in high school, but he always knew he wanted a career that would help people. His favourite subjects were maths and physics (“I wasn’t very good at them, but I did enjoy them!”), so he signed up to do a Bachelor’s degree (honours) in mechanical engineering at the University of Waikato.

During his undergraduate years, Mahonri spent two years as a missionary with his church in South Africa, which further cemented his desire to make a difference. Returning home to New Zealand to finish his last year of uni, Mahonri came across a project for a brain-controlled prosthetic hand, which seemed like the perfect opportunity, so he jumped in.

“Over the next few months I wrestled with how hard the project actually was,” says Mahonri. But he finished his undergraduate degree, continuing with the project at Waikato for his Master’s and then a PhD. The technology, he explains, “is literally Star Wars and Terminator-type stuff”.

“We’re taking electrical signals from the brain and once we figure out what they mean, we then use them to control mechanical devices – like a prosthetic hand,” he says.

Recognising your own value

Mahonri says his Māori heritage has played an important role in his career. Māori and Pacific Islander people make up just two per cent of New Zealand’s STEM workforce, which means Mahonri hasn’t always felt like he belonged.

“I was confused about how my value could be seen,” he says. “It wasn’t until even a few years ago I realised that it’s alright for me to be a Māori doctor in engineering and that I should feel comfortable here.” Mahonri explains that a lot of his work is based on the Māori health concept of Te whare tapa whā – balancing the four dimensions of wellbeing: physical, spiritual, family and mental.

“When someone loses their hand or limb, initially it’s absolutely a physical disability – they are shocked and traumatised from the loss of something they have had their whole life. But the impact is also social, mental, spiritual – it’s not a problem you can solve just by giving them an artificial hand and saying ‘here, take this’,” Mahonri points out.

As a doctoral researcher at Waikato University, Mahonri has now also directed his passion to do good towards supporting other young Māori people to pursue a career in STEM, through the Pūhoro STEM Academy, which has a mission to ‘advance Māori leadership and capability’ in STEM.

“We’ve got 800 Māori kids in our program that were just like me, who we can now give opportunities to,” he says. “I believe they’re our next leaders.” – Gemma Chilton

Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) (Honours), University of Waikato

Master of Engineering (Brain Controlled Prosthetics) (Honours), University of Waikato

PhD Engineering (Mechatronics, Robotics and Automation Engineering), University of Waikato

Doctoral Researcher, University of Waikato

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Coding for care

Love tech and want to save lives? Medicine and healthcare are being transformed by digital technology

Healthcare and social assistance – think hospitals, medical centres, aged care and childcare – is Australia’s biggest and fastest growing industry*. And healthcare is not only on the rise due to our growing and ageing population, but it is also evolving fast thanks to advances in technology.

This means if the sight of blood makes you squeamish, there are still loads of job opportunities in healthcare, especially for anyone with tech skills and qualifications.

For example, as we digitise health information we will need data analysts and cyber security experts to help us make the most of that vital data while keeping it safe. We need engineers and developers to design and build life-saving health software and apps; and machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts will drive our increasing use of these technologies to do everything from accurately diagnosing disease to conducting precision robotic surgery. Advances in technology are also driving down the cost of sequencing DNA and genomes, opening up new realms of medicine.

‘Tectonic shift’ to digital

The COVID-19 pandemic has only driven home the important role of technology in medicine. In just the past year we’ve seen the rise of telehealth – using technology to deliver health services remotely, while tech has played a public health role in tracking down contacts of people with positive COVID-19 test results. AI has also been used to automatically interpret and accurately diagnose COVID-19 infection in scans.

“With COVID-19 we’ve seen about 10 years’ worth of digital transformation in the space of a few months,” says Stefan Hajkowicz, a scientist at CSIRO’s Data61 specialising in future trends.

Stefan Hajkowicz, Future Expert, Data61

“Digital skills just got a lot more important,” he says. “There will be career pathways for data scientists, cyber security experts and people with skills in all aspects of digital technology. Mathematics, computational logic and coding are foundation skills for all things digital.” Building up soft skills will be equally important, adds Stefan.

“Human-centred digital design puts the person at the centre. This requires skills in psychology, economics, management science and social science. It also requires emotional and social intelligence. There will be a big ‘how to’ question around adaptation to digital and that calls upon a broader skill set,” he says.

“Now might be the time to take advantage of a tectonic shift and build up your digital skills.” – Gemma Chilton

4 cool ways VR is changing healthcare

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is literally changing the world – it makes you feel like you’ve been transported to a whole new (virtual) space – but it’s also making big changes in other ways, especially in healthcare

1. Education and training

Both VR and AR (Augmented Reality) can be used to add an extra step in medical training, allowing healthcare professionals to practice on something that looks and feels close to the real thing – without yet having to practice on an actual patient. Check out page 40 for one example of VR being used to help midwifery students practice delivering babies!

2. Easing anxiety

A lot of people experience anxiety in hospital, especially before a big procedure. Imagine instead of looking up at bright lights and beeping machines, you could feel transported to a peaceful nature scene. This exact approach was trialled on patients before and during wide-awake surgery at St George’s Hospital in London – and 100 per cent of patients said the technology improved their overall hospital experience!

3. Teaching empathy

Empathy – the ability to ‘put yourself in someone else’s shoes’ – is a super-important skill for doctors and medical professionals. Understanding how someone else might be feeling means you can do a better job of caring for them. Enter VR. In one study, VR was used for training people working in aged-care to help them get a better idea of what it feels like to experience age-related conditions such as hearing loss. The study concluded the VR training was an effective way to help medical and healthcare professionals develop empathy.

4. Speeding up recovery

Physical therapy departments are using VR to speed up recovery in patients, for example following a stroke or traumatic brain injury. One company, Neuro Rehab VR, founded in the US in 2017, is using VR and machine learning technology to offer personalised therapy exercises using a games approach. The technology has potential to be used not just in hospitals but at home too, where patients can continue with their recovery exercises, without needing a physiotherapist on hand. – Gemma Chilton