Background

Current health-care institutions tend to operate in a reactive capacity rather than with a more optimal proactive outlook. The patient is often flagged for treatment of an illness after the problem has advanced to the stage where the effectiveness of the treatment may be reduced, the recovery time is significantly longer, and the overall cost of treatment significantly higher than if the deterioration in health was identified at an early stage. Regular patient check-ups at a local health institution would certainly remedy this problem. However, since the majority of hospitals world-wide are operating underfunded and understaffed, it is not possible for the general population to obtain regular health screening.

The Biomedical Systems Laboratory aims to promote at-home and free-living health assessment through the development of new technologies, which are built on a strong background in physiology, electronic instrumentation and biosignal processing. Through the use of intelligent algorithms, applied to non-invasively measured signals, we strive to determine robust indicators of health which may be incorporated into relatively low-cost systems for at-home and free-living use. Such systems can reliably provide regular monitoring of a patient in the long-term and pre-empt the onset of a deterioration in health.

History

In 1981, Dr. Branko Celler joined the School of Electrical Engineering and soon afterwards established the Biomedical Systems Laboratory (BSL), which he still leads today with Prof. Nigel Lovell, his first PhD student, as co-Director. Since its inception the BSL has had a strong focus on health informatics with research strengths in bioinstrumentation, biosignal processing, cardiovascular modelling and decision support.

In 1992 Prof. Celler was awarded a prestigious British Telecom Research Fellowship and spent three months at the Martylsham Research Laboratories. Branko proposed three innovative projects for further research, and British Telecom funded one of the first ever projects on the unobtrusive monitoring of health status of the frail elderly using innovative sensor networks. This innovative project was finished in 1996 following a successful field trial, and led to worldwide adoption of similar methods using more advanced sensor networks.

However Prof. Celler and his co-workers realised that the management of chronic disease was rapidly developing as the major issue facing developing and developed nations and he, together with Prof. Lovell from the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, began a program of research that culminated in the awarding of two major grants totaling more than $2 million over five years (2003-2007) from the Australian Research Council. An ARC Discovery Grant was entitled “A comprehension framework for interactive home telehealth research” and an ARC Linkage Grant was centred on “Adding a health dimension to integrated automation solutions for intelligent homes”. These were the first grants ever awarded in this new area of telehealth research. Since then, the work of the BSL in health informatics has led to the establishment of a startup company, Telemedcare Pty Ltd (www.telemedcare.com.au) which now employs 25 staff in Sydney and five in the UK, and is rapidly developing an international reputation for innovation and excellence in telehealth. Prof. Celler has taken special leave for three years to become the CEO of this company.

News

• Dean Karantonis wins the 2007 Helmut Reul Young Investigator Encouragement Award, awarded by the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps (ISRBP).
• Dean Karantonis places 2nd in the EMBS 28th Annual International Conference Student Paper Competition.