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23 August 2021

Swinburne’s Head of School delivers plenary talk at NCCR 2021

KUCHING – Swinburne’s Head of School of Information and Communication Technologies, and Director of Swinburne Sarawak’s Digital Innovation Precinct and Centre for Digital Futures Professor Patrick Then was recently invited by the Ministry of Health Malaysia to deliver a plenary talk at the 14th National Conference for Clinical Research 2021 (NCCR 2021).

Addressing more than 900 participants at the event, Professor Then presented a talk titled “Digital Health: Malaysia Original” that highlighted many original digital health research and development (R&D) fully completed in the country and recognised by overseas researchers and societies. With 13-year digital health research experience and multiple achievements, Professor Then’s transnational research in digital health has spanned across chronic disease management particularly in cardiology and diabetes, and public health management, notably COVID-19 surveillance and management in Sarawak.

Professor Then also spoke about presenting at the inaugural Digital Summit by European Society of Cardiology in Tallinn, Estonia in 2019. Together with his team, they successfully developed artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms to identify abnormal heart wall motion that can cause heart diseases including heart attack. Another landmark research was predicting diabetes among healthy people based on social demographic profiles, profession, and physical activity on top of the widely known dietary intake pattern. The research won them the Best Paper award at an IT conference in Taiwan in 2017.

Professor Then’s research projects are funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), Sarawak government agencies and private agencies such as Sarawak Information Systems Sdn Bhd and Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC).

Under MOSTI funding, he carried out a research to create AI algorithms that detect eye diseases based on simple fundus eye photos. The algorithms allow the AI to perform repetitive job which is checking infinite number of eyes, while allowing the doctors to perform more important tasks which is to see the patients. This enables doctors to gain deeper understanding of patients’ health condition to make accurate diagnosis and treatment. In addition, together with a Swiss industry partner and a Malaysian distributor, Professor Then and his team developed a home-based remote blood pressure monitoring system where an ecosystem allows every user to send their blood pressure reading to their doctors or caretaking family members simply by pressing a button on a software application installed on their smartphones.

Last year, Professor Then shifted his digital research to focus on COVID-19. In March 2020, his team developed the COVID-19 person-under-investigation (PUI) surveillance system (SHN) that runs on cloud and mobile apps. By using their smartphones, users only have to send their geo-locations and selfie photos to the relevant authorities or employers. SHN was used by more than 3,000 individuals from public and private sectors such as Sarawak General Hospital and Longi Kuching Sdn Bhd. Subsequently, his research team created the remote body temperature monitoring system for COVID-19 patients. With the monitoring system, doctors and nurses are no longer required to visit patients to take their body temperature which significantly reduces frequency of contact between patients and the healthcare workers.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health Malaysia, Professor Then is currently conducting a nationwide epidemiological study to detect COVID-19 from cough sounds. This ongoing research project would potentially build an industry standard for Malaysia at par with the ones created by Cambridge University in the UK and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

In his research journey, Professor Then has worked with local and international collaborators including Professor Dr Alan Fong, Head of Clinical Research Centre, Sarawak General Hospital; Dr Ong Tiong Kiam, Head of Cardiology Department, Sarawak Heart Centre; as well as his own team members from Swinburne Sarawak comprising young generation of digital health researchers namely Dr Valliappan Raman, Dr Yakub Sebastian, Dr Brian Loh, and Dr Vong Wantze.

NCCR conference series is widely recognised by clinical research arena as the flagship conference in Malaysia. It is the premier platform for top clinicians, clinical researchers, and policy makers from all around the world to deliver their talks and exchange ideas about state-of-the-arts innovations and breakthrough in clinical research. This year’s conference was launched by Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr Noor Hisham bin Abdullah, Director General of Health, Malaysia.

Scholarships for PhD and Master by research in digital health are available at Swinburne Sarawak for applications. For more information, chat with Swinburne’s Education Counsellor via WhatsApp at 019-819 6353 or email to study@swinburne.edu.my.

For more information about Swinburne Sarawak, visit its website www.swinburne.edu.my, Facebook page (@swinburnesarawak), Instagram (@swinburnesarawak), Twitter page (@Swinburne_Swk) or YouTube channel (Swinburne Sarawak)

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Marcella Gider
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