Enjoying an international reputation for delivering innovative solutions to the provision of health care, and sharing a vision to power further innovation, the University of Toronto, Manchester and the University of Melbourne came together in 2020 to fund establishment of the International Centre for Translational Digital Health (ICTDH).
Since its foundation, ICTDH has made significant strides in bridging the gap between academic research and practical applications in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. This includes development, implementation and translation of new technologies, policies and service delivery models, and supporting greater collaboration among early career researchers from each of the partner universities.
Extending the reach of research networks to find solutions to pressing global problems
Joining an existing partnership between the universities of Toronto and Manchester in 2022, the University of Melbourne established the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health under the leadership of Professor Wendy Chapman, administrator and director of Transformation of Health Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences.
The trilateral partnership leverages strengths inherent to each university. The University of Toronto brings expertise in Virtual Care, the University of Manchester specialises in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the University of Melbourne provides access to the southern hemisphere's largest biomedical precinct.
This diversity provides broad and deep expertise and contrasting expertise to influence health system innovations in remote monitoring and virtual care, health policy and implementation, data science and artificial intelligence, and digital health inequity. Realising innovation in such areas has the potential to secure further external funding and generate revenue by expanded workforce training.
Collaboration spanning education, research, commercialisation and translation
In addition to progressing educational initiatives such as the2023 Making Digital Health Real! Series to enhance knowledge exchange, the ICTDH partnership has attracted seed grants that are opening meaningful engagement with industry and creating pathways towards commercialisation that translates research findings into practical applications.
With the £300,000 funding received in 2022 from the Manchester-Melbourne-Toronto (MMT) Research Fund, ICTDH researchers are also forging ahead with a series of important collaborative research projects that build on the joint strength of the three universities to develop research papers, student exchanges and additional external funding.
Additionally, cutting-edge tools like the University of Melbourne’s Digital Health Validitron project is creating simulated environments for prototyping and showcasing research. This not only facilitates the visualisation of research outcomes, but serves as a tool for potential funders.
Current ICTDH partnership projects
- Comparison of policy and practice relating to patient online health records access in England and Ontario
Dr Brian McMillan (University of Melbourne) and Dr Carolyne Steele Gray (University of Toronto)
- Commercialization pipeline to spread and sustain Canadian digital therapeutics in the UK
Dr Quynh Pham (University of Toronto) and Professor Panos Constantinides (University of Melbourne)
- Identifying and addressing digital health equity barriers – applying the Health Equity Impact Assessment tool to optimise the Manchester Digital Pain Manikin
Dr Allison Crawford (University of Toronto) and Dr Sabine van der Veer (University of Melbourne)
- Configurable federated de-identification of clinical free-text data to unlock the research potential of unstructured patient data to improve health and treatment outcomes
Professor Goran Nenadic (University of Melbourne) and Professor Therese Stukel (University of Toronto).