ACADEMIC AND INDUSTRY HEALTH ALLIANCE TACKLE TOMORROW’S NATIONAL HEALTH CHALLENGES TODAY Trends report identifies prototyping targets for breakthroughs in digital and hybrid futures
With
Vishaal Kishore,
Professor of Innovation and Public Policy
RMIT University &
Executive Chair, RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab &
Director – Impact, RMIT University, Melbourne
AUSTRALIAN HEALTH JOURNAL SEGMENT
Filmed in Melbourne | June 2025
Vishaal Kishore, a Professor of Innovation and Public Policy at RMIT in Melbourne, serves as the Executive Chair of the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab and RMIT’s Director of Impact. Led by the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab, the National Industry Innovation Network (NIIN) Health Alliance combines the best minds, technologists, industry capabilities and academic resources to solve pressing industry and social challenges through technology-driven innovation. The NIIN aims to pool insights and expertise to address national health challenges, marking its first vertical focus on health.
Last year a “Sandbox” was established to serve as a digitally rich collaboration and prototyping studio designed for privacy and security, ready to innovate in aged care and healthcare. The “Sandbox” housed at RMIT-Cisco’s Health Transformation Lab is a digitally-enabled mock care setting where researchers, startups and health system professionals work together on prototypes for the future of health. The Sandbox enables a frictionless pipeline from idea to implementation. The inclusion of autonomous robotics, has created a space where the most futuristic visions for health can be trialled, tested, and translated into practice.
The Health Transformation Lab emphasises user engagement, prioritising the voices of clients and clinicians to design solutions based on their needs rather than assumptions. This practice aims to ensure that any technology developed gains traction in health systems only if it genuinely reflects user requirements.
The NIIN Health Alliance has identified urgent needs in the healthcare system, considering the rapidly evolving technological landscape. As part of their strategic planning, they reviewed nearly 10,000 articles and reports to outline pivotal trends for the future in the publication “Health x Digital Transformation Report 2024-2025”.
In this report, a significant focus has been on the implications of augmented intelligence, remote patient monitoring, digital simulations, adaptable systems, and leveraging advancements in biotechnology, aiming to prepare the healthcare sector for emerging challenges and opportunities in the coming years.
Source: Written from transcript and health transformation lab website by AUDIENCED
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Australia’s Nursing Crisis Snapshot
“Nursing, already under pressure, is reaching breaking point due to the pressures of COVID-19 and a disjointed healthcare system, including the acute, primary and aged care sectors”, says Kylie Ward, Australian College of Nursing CEO adding, “We must act now to protect our nurses and healthcare; the time has come for a national reckoning on nursing in Australia.”
Australian nurses cannot continue to work under the extreme pressure they are currently operating under – the impacts are mounting.
The almost 400,000 Australian nurses are a constant presence in every one of our major life milestones, national emergencies and global crises. The nurse of today holds a science degree, possesses highly technical training, valuable medical opinions, front-row expertise, is an effective trainer, and is skilled in population and systemic thinking. But the pandemic is inflicting a major emotional and physical toll on nurses.
In this “Perspectives” special, Australian Health Journal spoke with 4 nurses on the challenges they or nurses in their circle have experienced, the key issues as well some of the opportunities. These nurses come from national leadership & policy, large scale workforce management, a final year student completing over a year on placement across 6 Melbourne Hospitals and a NSW based ICU nurse stranded in Mexico, unable to return to a critical role in nursing to an already strained team due to incoming quotas.
While the issues are challenging, there are strategies that can be put into place to ease the pressure, to support nurses, and nursing care in Australia. These are discussed by the the 4 nurses.
– Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward FACN CEO, Australian College of Nursing
– Adjunct Professor Alanna Geary FACN ACN Chair of Workforce Sustainability Policy Chapter & Chief Nursing & Midwifery Officer, Metro North Health
– Natalie Reyes, NSW based ICU Nurse Currently stranded in Mexico
– Hayley Pollock, Final Year Bachelor of Nursing Student & ACN Emerging Nurse Leader
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Founder makes mobility reality
Shawn Wigham as Managing Director of Hospital Products Australia (HPA), runs a successful business providing equipment to Australia’s health care teams in aged care, hospitals and day-hospital procedure centres.
But what most may not be aware of, is his rapid growth since starting the business in 2013 having just been in health care a few years earlier. Being part of a 2nd generation health care family, Shawn learnt from his father on site and at trade show visits overseas. Prior to HPA, he spent 2 years working in fit-outs of operating theatres, neo-natal and general population ICU, throughout being more fascinated with what he saw.
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Bionic eye trial shows improvements in functional vision for retinitis pigmentosa
Results of the first clinical trial of Australia’s ‘second generation’ bionic eye have demonstrated ‘substantial improvement’ in four participants’ functional vision, daily activities and quality of life over a period of more than two and a half years.
Led by the Centre for Eye Research Australia, Bionics Institute, University of Melbourne and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, the trial findings add to interim results which showed that the second-generation bionic eye developed by Australian company Bionic Vision Technologies provided rapid improvements for four patients with blindness caused the genetic eye condition retinitis pigmentosa.
