Unloading the Information “Overload” in Intensive Care

Abstract

In this seminar, Prof. John Fraser will present the global collaboration of CCRG and the future of ICU. The Critical Care Research Group is the largest multi-disciplinary research group in Australia. CCRG is based at Australia's largest cardiac centre, The Prince Charles Hospital, focusing on critically ill intensive care patients. From half an office in 2004 to eight purpose-built, the Group has over seventy staff on the team, with many senior doctors and scientists from some of the world's most prestigious hospitals and labs from across five continents. 

Artificial intelligence presents an immediate opportunity to improving  ICU outcomes. While the integration of Artificial Intelligence into ICU is still in its infancy, AI presents potential to save lives and ensure that the lives saved survive with a quality survival. Survival has to be worthwhile. Approximately 150,000 patients are admitted annually to an intensive care unit (ICU) in Australia and New Zealand,  with complex medical problems. They are the most critically unwell patients in the hospital with the highest risk of death. Treating their multi-organ dysfunction depends on an interdisciplinary team's smooth interdigitation. Recent medical and technological advances have facilitated more complex operations and interventions being provided safely to older, sicker patients. The complex nature of this care leads to each patient receiving close to 200 interventions and a dependency on up to 100 pieces of equipment per day. 

Currently, there is limited integration of technologies and devices in the ICU. While the growing number of equipment produces vast amounts of data making ICU patients the most observed patients in the healthcare system, this lack of communication between lifesaving equipment can be associated with harm and is an "opportunity missed". After hours, the seniority of the doctor taking these decisions drops dramatically.

Speaker

Prof John Fraser

Professor John Fraser is a clinician scientist, innovator and disruptor. His scientific endeavours highlighted to him the potential of medical technologies in the heart and lung arena when developed symbiotically with world class clinicians, researchers, developers - with the patient at the centre of these innovations. John Fraser CIA is the initiator, leader and driving force of the CRE ACTIONS collaborative and is responsible for the overall direction and management of the CRE.

Professor Fraser is a Pre-Eminent Staff Specialist in Intensive Care Medicine and Head of the Critical Care Research Group, The Prince Charles Hospital, Director of Intensive Care Unit, St Andrews War Memorial Hospital, Professor Critical Care and Anaesthesia, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Professor of Medicine, Bond University, Adjunct Professor School of Engineering Systems, Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Associate Professor School of Medicine, Griffith University and Adjunct Clinical Professor, Monash University.

In his roles as the founder of the CCRG ( https://ccrg.org.au ) , Australia’s largest acute care multidisciplinary research group in Australia, Founder of medical device company De Motu Cordis Pty Ltd (. https://demotucordis.co/) , and as an intensive care medicine specialist, Prof Fraser has seen time and again how the best and brightest innovators in the areas of cardiovascular, respiratory and chronic disease continue to face a critical funding gap to transport their early to mid stage innovations through to manufacture and commercialisation. Prof Fraser has co-founded the Quantum Medical Innovation Fund, focussing on medical innovations that make a quantum difference to both to patient outcomes and investor returns.

Instrumental in the creation of the Medical Engineering Research Facility located at TPCH, Professor Fraser has established two specialised research laboratories at TPCH. With 195+ journal publications, he has delivered 71 keynote and invited lectures nationally and internationally. He supervises 18 ongoing PhD students (4 completed) and 6 ongoing Masters students (2 completed).

Professor Fraser was the co-founder and director of BiVACOR Pty Ltd, developing an implantable total artificial heart, giving him a strong base for industry translation. Professor Fraser’s research is underpinned by active national and international research including Conference Committee chair of the Asia-Pacific Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation.

It is his network that facilitated the birth of the COVID Consortium ( https://www.covid-critical.com) - a global Critical Care Community born across 55 countries and approx 400 hospitals to share data , create real time dashboards with IBM and work towards the use of AI in management of COVID 19. Prof Fraser continues to push at the boundaries of medicine, science and technology, all in the pursuit of ensuring that critically ill patients across the world have every opportunity to thrive - not just survive.

Host

Dr Sen Wang

Dr Sen Wang is an ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in computer science and data science at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at UQ. He is also a CI on several health data analytics research grants. Sen has an interest in ICU data and has clinical collaborations with RBWH and Children’s Hospital.

Dr Wang received his PhD degree in 2014 and his research interest includes various topics on Feature Selection, Semi-supervised Learning, Deep Learning, Pattern Recognition, Data Mining, and Health Informatics. Since 2010, Dr Wang has published 80+ academic papers on top conferences and journals. Most were published in internationally renowned journals and conferences in the fields of data science, data mining, and machine learning, such as Algorithmica, TNNLS, TMC, TKDE, TCYB, TMM, WWWJ, Signal Processing, ACM TOMM, ACM MM, IJCAI, AAAI, SDM, CIKM, CVPR, ICCV, ICDM, ISWC, ECML-PKDD, PAKDD, ICONIP, ICPADS, and WISE, all CORE A/A* journals and conferences. According to Google Scholar (as of 31 May 2022), his total citation number is 2,497 with an h-index of 26.