KJR is a very proud Foundation Partner for Datarwe, a data-driven technology company that provides an acute care medical research data platform as a service.

Datarwe (Data Real World Evidence) was launched last week by the Minister for Innovation and Tourism Industry Development and Minister for Cross River Rail, The Honourable Kate Jones MP. 

Sitting within the Datarwe team is KJR Founder and Chairman, Dr Kelvin Ross, and our CTO, Dr Mark Pedersen – both providing their expertise to this exciting new venture.

Here is the full media release:

Revolutionary Gold Coast AI project to hep doctors make critical decisions in intensive care

Getting precise information rapidly in an intensive care unit is critical in saving lives, never more so as our health system manages the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, a Gold Coast-based data-driven technology company is developing a medical data platform that could well revolutionise innovations in health care, saving many lives, and helping our hospitals rapidly develop the tools they need to manage in a COVID-19 situation.

The data platform is so promising the Queensland Government is providing Advance Queensland funding to support it.

Minister for Innovation Kate Jones today announced the Government would provide $1.5 million in Advance Queensland funding to Gold Coast-based Datarwe for their Precision Medicine Data Platform project.

“The intensive care medical data platform will enable clinicians and medical researchers to more rapidly collaborate in the development of next generation AI clinical diagnostic tools and technologies. This will result in supporting doctors and nurses in making more informed real-time decisions about how to care for patients – something which is really critical as we’ve seen with the threat of COVID-19,” Minister Jones said.

Intensive care is where a patient receives short-term treatment by a team of health care professionals for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition or during recovery from surgery.

“This can be a critical period for a patient, with doctors often having to depend on their medical training and expertise alone to make the call on treatment.

“Thanks to rapid developments in big data analytics, machine learning and AI, Datarwe brings all this information together with the ultimate aim of equipping clinicians working in acute care with the tools they need to make critical, highly complex decisions quickly.”

The Precision Medicine Data Platform will gather volumes of data from multiple devices and dedicated clinical information sources, initially from the close monitoring of patients in the Gold Coast University Hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Data will include patient demographics, lab results, drug administration and high-frequency vital sign monitoring during a patient’s stay in ICU.

“The aim is to expand the platform to 250 hospitals across the Asia-Pacific region, containing de-identified data on 2.5 million Intensive Care episodes.

“This will be a significant resource for medical researchers, giving them key information on the efficacy of treatments and helping them develop new diagnostics, treatment protocols and med-tech products,” Minister Jones said.

“For patients, it will result in more precise diagnoses and treatments specifically tailored for them.

“For health providers, Datarwe’s platform will provide efficiency benefits in the operation of health services as well as highly valuable data for clinicians to develop innovative medical techniques.

“It could also put Queensland at the forefront of developing a technology that could be used in bedsides across the world, creating not only health benefits, but also economic benefits for the state.”

Ms Jones said the brains behind the project were Associate Professor Brent Richards and Dr Kelvin Ross.

Dr Richards is a specialist in critical care at the Gold Coast University Hospital. He is a strong advocate of bringing the benefits of AI to Queensland hospitals and the individual patient bedsides.

Dr Ross is the founder and non-executive Chair of specialist IT advisory firm KJR and an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Intelligent and Integrated Systems at Griffith University.

He is also a director in intelliHQ, with the aim of promoting research, education, investment and commercialisation in AI-based technologies that will improve patient and system outcomes in healthcare.

“We are currently working around the clock with Queensland Health to add a COVID-19 Rapid Response dashboard to the Datarwe platform. As early as next week we plan to have this dashboard in-place for ICU units in Queensland to use as part of the coronavirus pandemic response plan,” Dr Ross said.

“The investment by Advance Queensland is also a critical step towards making Queensland a global hub for medical AI research and associated technology firms. We are already attracting the world’s leading medical AI researchers and innovators to collaborate and invest here, and that will create a new industry of advanced skills and jobs locally.”

Visit Datarwe’s website to learn more.