Gold Coast Hospital

A federal government grant-backed trial in Queensland will be testing an intravenous treatment monitoring system on hospitalised babies. The monitoring system involves attaching a near-infrared sensor to a baby's skin near the IV site to monitor continuously the surrounding tissues. It sets off alarms when it detects a volume change in those tissues. WHY IT MATTERS In Australia, over 18,000 infants below age 1 are admitted to hospitals each year with about 60% of them requiring drip treatments, such as for rehydration and antibiotics. Citing studies, Amanda Ullman, professor at the University of Queensland School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, said between 33%-45% of these IV treatments in babies stop working before they are completed. "The vein where the IV is placed can be damaged during treatment, resulting in the fluid pooling in the tissue rather than being administered into the bloodstream," explained Prof Ullman. "Even with the best care and monitoring, unintentional injuries from IVs can occur because by the time signs of injury appear such as pain, redness and swelling, the damage has already happened." The trial, which started last year, targets to recruit over 500 babies in three years. It aims to enhance the delivery of IV treatments to babies in hospitals by detecting issues in IV treatments early. The IV monitoring device is being trialled at Queensland Children’s Hospital, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Neonatal Unit, and the Neonatal and Child and Adolescent Units at Sunshine Coast University Hospital. The trial has received funding from the federal government's Medical Research Future Fund. THE LARGER TREND Remote infant monitoring technologies have also been developed and tested in recent years in neighbouring state, South Australia. For example, an AI-powered computer vision system was used as an alternative to ECG to remotely monitor the vital signs of babies in the NICU of Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide. Meanwhile, a foetal monitoring system powered by AI is now part of the standard of care across public maternity sites in Western Australia. This comes after successfully trying out the AI-powered system in 2021. The Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service in Queensland is also trialling a remote pregnancy monitoring platform, which is being eyed as a standard in caring for high-risk pregnancies at its Women Newborn and Children Services.

Queensland-based Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service will be trying out a remote pregnancy monitoring platform by ASX-listed HeraMED. The organisations recently signed a memorandum of understanding to trial the HeraCARE platform as a "new standard of care" for high-risk pregnancies at GCHHS's Women Newborn and Children Services. The cloud-based platform allows providers to easily manage patient activity remotely via a dashboard while patients fulfil tasks from their personalised care plan via a mobile app and kit of smart connected devices, which includes the HeraBEAT foetal heart rate monitor. HeraCARE delivers configurable and automated notifications and features HIPAA-compliant telehealth call and chat functionality. It also has personalised educational content provided by the Mayo Clinic as part of patients' care plans. The trial at GCHHS will be tracking up to 90 pregnancies using HeraCARE for a period of six to nine months. It aims to evaluate the platform's clinical usability, patient satisfaction, value for money and economic benefit. At the same time, the hospital will conduct a clinical implementation study with HeraMED to assess several use cases of HeraCARE, including acceptance, cost-effectiveness, and clinical outcomes. Following the trial, GCHHS plans to secure additional licenses for HeraCARE, "subject to a proper market scan, value for money assessment and results of clinical outcomes," according to a media release. THE LARGER TREND A year ago, another medical device company, Baymatob, raised around $3 million in funding to complete the in-human clinical trials for its AI-powered labour monitoring device called Oli in Australia and the United States. The said device uses sensors and AI to identify mothers who are at high risk of developing abnormal postpartum haemorrhage before giving birth. Across Australia, health services have started adopting digital technologies to raise efficiencies in managing and supporting pregnancies. The Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN), for example, has recently digitised its delivery of prenatal care by implementing the Pregnancy Online Platform NALHN , which it developed with Personify Care. The platform has digital pathways that deliver information specific to a patient's stage of pregnancy. Last year, the Western Australia government began rolling out an AI-powered foetal monitoring system called Infant Guardian System by K2 Medical Systems across all Country Health Service maternity sites. ON THE RECORD Speaking on the HeraCARE trial, Sandip Kumar, Gold Coast Health Executive Director for Strategy, Transformation and Major Capital, shared that they are adopting remote pregnancy monitoring technology as part of their digital transformation. "Having successfully completed the first stage of our transformation agenda, which was to digitally enable our health service, the focus now is to leverage new technologies to improve the quality and experience of patient care and we expect the HeraCARE platform will deliver on these goals as our new standard of care," he said. GCHHS serves patients across the northern Gold Coast region and the NSW border through more than 20 facilities, including three hospitals and two health precincts.