The Health Informatics Research (HIR) group is located within the School of Computing and IT, University of Western Sydney. Health Informatics is an emerging research area with significant potential. Health Informatics refers to computing and IT research and development to support Health and Medicine. Areas of support include, but are not limited to:

• Administrative Systems (Admission and Financial)
• Patient Journey Transformation
• Clinical data collection systems
• Physiological data collection systems
• Clinical Analysis and Research
• Training
• Telemedicine and Telehealth
• Virtual Reality Anatomy Models

Members
Dr Carolyn McGregor (Group Leader)
Associate Professor George Bryan
Associate Professor Richard Ollerton
Urvashi Chadha
Dr Hon Cheung
Joanne Curry
Paul Davies
Darren Foster
Narendra Gangavarapu
Jennifer Heath
Ain De Horta
Dr Greame Salter
Mike Stacey
Heidi Stratti
Dr Jeffery Zou
Jeffery Zou
Bruce Kneale
Keith Lui
Liwan Liyanage
Aruna Jamdagni
Sandra Lazarus
Prof Patricia Davidson
Dr Andrew Francis

Associate Members
Dr Yi-Chen Lan
Dr Bhuvan Unhelkar

External Members
Dr Mark Tracy (NICU, Nepean Hospital)
Dr Jan Klimek (NICU, Nepean Hospital)
Dr Sally Tracy (National Perinatal Statistics Unit)
Dr John Smoleniec (Feto-maternal unit, Liverpool Hospital)
Professor Monique Frize (MIRG, Carleton University)
Dr Robin Walker (Children's Hospital of Easter Ontario, Canada)
Christina Catley (MIRG, Carleton University)

PhD Students
Joanne Curry
Darren Foster
Mike Stacey
Keith Lui

Masters (Honours) Students
Jennifer Heath

Key Research Areas
UWS Health Informatics Research is focussed on information system, computer science and information technology applied research within the domain of health and medicine. The some of the key HIR research programs are detailed below:

Multi-agent Data Mining Architectures for Clinical Analysis and Trend Detection
This research program is extending Dr Carolyn McGregor's recent research into Multi-Agent based Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS) by applying that IDSS framework and methodology within the context of neonatal clinical analysis and research to enable the detection of trends and patterns in neonatal clinical and physiological data. This research is supported by an Australian Research Council - Linkage Project Grant (LP0349279).

Bush Babies on Broadband
This research program is investigating ways to transmit real-time data collected from medical monitors and ventilators, audiovisual streams and static physiological data such as x-ray images to a consulting ICU specialist, located at another hospital in order to establish a virtual ICU. In addition, connections are established with the supporting ICU specialist 'on demand' eliminating the need to establish permanent point to point connections. Open research areas currently under investigation under this research program include: the use of broadband for transmission of medical data, the application of web services for the transmission of medical data, a service model for on-demand virtual ICUs, the development of a medical protocol for the transmission of medical data and physiological data compression techniques. This research is supported by a Telstra Broadband Fund grant.

Neonatal and Perinatal Health Informatics Research Audit
The establishment of the Neonatal and Perinatal Health Informatics (NAPHI pronounced as 'nappy') research network is of great national significance. UWS Health Informatics, for the first time in Australia, is leading a research effort to audit the computing and IT research that has been undertaken in support of the areas of Neonatology and Perinatology.

High Frequency Data Stream Event Correlation for Complex Medical Alerts
This new research program aims to extend Dr Carolyn McGregor's recent research into Data Stream Event Correlation (DSEC) and Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS) by applying that DSEC and IDSS framework and methodology within the context of complex neonatal medical alerts. Open research questions currently under investigation within this research program are: a rules framework to define complex proactive medical alert rules, a framework to translate information derived from the data mining and agents that detect new patterns and trends in the data into event correlation rules for use with the patient data streams as this data is forwarded to the patient data warehouse and intelligent decision support system and a framework for the data stream event correlation for complex medical alerts.

Near Real Time Data Warehouse for High Frequency Physiological Data Streams
This new research program aims to extend Dr Carolyn McGregor's recent research into Data Stream processing and Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS) by applying framework and methodology within the context of neonatal physiological data collection for near real time availability.

Medical Data Grids
This new research program aims to utilise recent research in the area of computer grids to connect several data warehouses containing Neonatal Physiological and Clinical data for extended clinical analysis and research.

Health Informatics Web Services and the Semantic Web
Web Services and the Semantic Web offer platform and language independent approaches for inter and intra organisation communication. This new research program is investigating ways to utilise web services for inter and intra health care facility communications and utilises Dr Carolyn McGregor's recent web services research. Open research areas currently under investigation include the application of web services for the transmission of medical data

Clinical Pathway Modelling Methodologies and Technologies
Health care organisations are pursuing ways to streamline their processes to improve health care and reduce costs. Tradition business process modelling tools and business process execution tools such as workflow management systems have been found to lack support for the complex, multi-organisation, dynamic and large scale patient journey processes that exist within healthcare. This new research program aims to develop methodologies, tools and techniques that can be applied to the more complex clinical pathway process. Open research areas under investigation include the development new clinical pathway transformation frameworks, the development of new clinical pathway modelling techniques and the development of new clinical pathway process management systems.

Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR)
CBIR uses the image content to retrieve a picture rather retrieval of an image using text based annotations accompanying the image. CBIR research has a wide application area other than just medical imaging. The project also has aspects of pattern recognition and display of 3D objects. Other areas of interest in the project would be Artificial Intelligence applications to the recognition and storage of images. The application of this research is being demonstrated through the research project "Detection of Abnormal Foetus Development Using Ultrasound".

PDA based Frameworks for Clinical Management and Research
This new research program aims to apply recent research in the area of PDAs within the domain of Neonatal Clinical Management and Research.

Key Research Collaborations
Key Collaborative Partners currently include:

• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Nepean Hospital
• Feto-Maternal Unit, Liverpool Hospital
• Perinatal Ultrasound, Nepean Hospital
• Medical Information technologies Research Group (MIRG), Carleton University, Canada
• Health Informatics Society of Australia
• Australia Research Council

Key Research Achievements

Postgraduate Researchers
HIR currently has 3 PhD students and 1 postgraduate student, with a further PhD scholarship place currently being advertised and another 2 PhD scholarship positions expected to be advertised before the end of 2005.

Key Grant Successes
Some of our key grant successes are detailed below

Source	Year	Title	Amount
ARC Linkage	Mid-2003 - Mid-2006	Intelligent Decision Support for Neonatal Analysis and Trend Detection	$73,099
Telstra	2004-2005	Bush Babies	$250,000

Further Details
For further details on the Health Informatics Research Group please contact Dr Carolyn McGregor (c.mcgregor@uws.edu.au).