Digital health partnership to create personalised solutions

The Digital Health Collaborative Research Centre (DHCRC), global medtech company Stryker and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have partnered to develop a digital platform to enhance patient health care.

The collaboration hopes to streamline the design and manufacturing of personalised health solutions in Australia.

“A local, fully digitised and connected planning and design treatment system has the potential to reduce production lead times and hospital and patient costs, improve patient outcomes and demonstrate scalability potential across multiple medical applications,” said Rob Wood, Senior Director of Research & Development at Stryker.

Last year Stryker opened its first R&D Lab in Brisbane with a focus on four core areas — digital health, robotics, clinical software applications and advanced manufacturing research.

The project will see academia and industry working together, with a special research and development relationship with UTS Rapido, a dedicated engineering and technology consultancy embedded within UTS providing expertise in additive manufacturing.

DHCRC CEO Annette Schmiede said this project has the potential to deliver a significant contribution to the digital health sector and the broader Australian economy.

“It is anticipated that the outcomes of this project will lead to job creation with localised product development in Australia, as well as an increase in local skill development,” Schmiede said.

“Longer term, this project has the potential to place Australia in a strong position to deliver digital solutions to the broader Asia Pacific region.

“This project brings unique R&D capability to Australia and represents an opportunity to bring together a global powerhouse, our world-leading universities and the local health sector. This reflects the core mission of the DHCRC.”

Image credit: iStockphoto.com/ArtemisDiana