Program
The Australian e-Health Research Centre conducts high quality, applied research that aims to improve the quality and safety of health care for individuals and communities through an ICT research program focused on applied outcomes and active adoption by the health system. The research program addresses the National Research Priority area "Promoting and Maintaining Good Health". It is also aligned with priorities identified by Queensland Health in Smart State: Health 2020 and with the CSIRO National Research Flagship Strategy.
The research program also aligns with the four priority "action areas" nominated in the National Chronic Disease Strategy that was developed under the auspices of the Council of Australian Governments (CoAG) by the National Health Priority Action Council:
- Prevention – the development of tools will build understanding of what prompts chronic disease and improve patient treatments through increased knowledge and understanding of chronic disease by better data linkage, data mining and data analysis; the development of personalized health-risk analysis for patients using biological and health data sets for obesity, cancer, diabetes, neurological disease, mental disorders and brain health will improve health outcomes;
- Early detection and treatment – the work defining the natural history of T1 and T2 prostate cancer in Australian men using multiple linked datasets, and the work to improve sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tools used for detection of localised prostate cancer will lead to important breakthroughs in the treatment of this cancer.
- Integration of care – enhancing the team-work and the networking of clinical expertise using ICT and by understanding Human Factors science issues will lead to development and deployment of tools to enhance communication, collaboration and knowledge, and to support community care, acute care and aged care workers.
- Self-management – through providing a graphic representation of patient activity outside of the clinical care environment, the tools developed will enhance self care through the analysis of information from personal monitoring devices in sensor enabled environments.
The research program will also endeavour to align itself with the the development of a national e-health strategy under the auspices of the CoAG National e-Health Information Principal Committee (NEHIPC).
Integrating Technology & Expertise
The Australian e-Health Research Centre and its research program integrates technologies and expertise from across the CSIRO ICT Centre, covering information acquisition (sensor devices and networks, human factors), information analysis (image and multimedia processing, presentation and visualisation, pattern recognition), and information management (data integration, information retrieval, processing). The Australian e-Health Research Centre conducts a balanced multi-year portfolio of activity and outcomes, and assures adoption through close partnerships with the Health system delivering on expressed needs. The impact is being demonstrated through the creation of improved practices for the management of individuals and patient cohorts by supporting fully informed clinical healthcare decisions.
Three levels of project category have been defined for the Australian e-Health Research Centre:
- Core Projects - undertaken in-house and fully staffed by Australian e-Health Research Centre funding
- Partner Projects - undertaken in conjunction with external partners through a combination of partner and Australian e-Health Research Centre funding
- Affiliate Projects - fully external projects to which the Australian e-Health Research Centre contributes minor support and funding
