Meet Ryan, a recent graduate of the Innovation Acceleration Program
Ryan Evans is a physiotherapist from Bendigo Health who participated in the University of Melbourne’s Innovation Acceleration Program (IAP), a pre-accelerator collaboration between the University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Bendigo Health and Western Health. The 12-week program connects clinicians working at the above partner health services with PhD researchers and business development teams from the University of Melbourne, enabling them to learn about the principles of innovation and entrepreneurship, and the process of value proposition and business model design. Below, Ryan shares some of his key reflections from the IAP and how it has supported him to develop an innovative virtual package of care for meniscal injuries.
Tell us about your project.
“My project focused on creating an online-based, self-managed rehabilitation program to help treat meniscal injuries, a particular subset of knee injury.
“Current evidence indicates that conservative rehabilitation prior to consideration of surgery is the recommended treatment approach for most types of meniscus tears. However, we have about 300 people with meniscus injuries on our orthopaedic waitlist at Bendigo Health, and we found that 65% of these patients hadn’t been seen at all within 12 months of referral from their GP.
“While most of these patients will not need to undergo surgery, they are unfortunately having to live with their injuries for extended periods of time before starting rehabilitation. This project is about developing some evidence-based conservative rehabilitation resources that can be accessed online, to support patients to begin their recovery more quickly.”
"The program empowers clinicians by giving us the tools and the knowledge to be able to solve problems ourselves."
How did collaborating with researchers and business development teams at the University of Melbourne support you to progress your idea?
“As a health professional, it can be difficult to know what business or project considerations you need to make when developing an idea. The question of ‘where do I go next?’ was always where I got stuck, because I was unsure of the process or structure that I needed to follow to ensure an idea is implemented successfully. The business development teams at the University of Melbourne had the entrepreneurial background required to provide much-needed structure and guidance, which was really helpful.
“The researchers from the University that I worked with during the program were what I called the ‘A-Team’. They had experience researching knee osteoarthritis, ACL injuries, and degenerative knee conditions, so they were really helpful in shaping my idea.
“The IAP gave me access to expertise from outside the clinical setting, bringing a completely new set of perspectives to the challenge I’m hoping to address. I was able to apply what I learned about innovation and entrepreneurship from lectures, tutorials, and the University teams I worked with to my project.
What did you learn from the program?
“I think my main take-away from the IAP was that there is a clear pathway you need to follow to take an idea from point A to point B. This process involved steps such as interviewing stakeholders, which is something I hadn't considered before. It forced me to reflect on whether this is a genuine problem, and clarify with others that they are seeing the same issues as me.
“Importantly, the program empowers clinicians by giving us the tools and the knowledge to be able to solve problems ourselves. Looking beyond this experience, I can apply the skills I’ve learned to a future project or support a colleague to progress an idea of their own. The IAP has given me the skills, knowledge and structure to develop and implement solutions going forward.”
“For those thinking about participating in the program, I'd encourage them to put in an application and have a discussion with the hospital team at Bendigo Health. At first, I didn’t really know how to approach my idea, but the researchers and business development teams supported me to develop and refine a solution. If you or your team is experiencing a clinical challenge that you’d like to solve, I recommend you come forward and see what comes of it.”
How do you hope to progress your idea further?
“My team is now putting together what we're calling a minimum viable product, something that we can take to hospital executives and basically say ‘this is what it’ll look like, this is what we what we're planning to do, and this is what we think the impact will be’. Our intention is that we will run a small pilot trial out of Bendigo Health involving about 20 participants, just to see what effect the intervention might have. Obviously, we’ll look at whether there’s any challenges or problems that we can address before we roll out. We’re working to get our hospital executive on board and then we'll look hopefully at a small pilot next year.”