Project Aims To Revolutionise Diabetes Treatments
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Media release - 25 July 2007
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A new $8.7 million healthcare project in Geelong aims to revolutionise diabetes treatments, cut healthcare costs and open up new export opportunities for local companies, the Minister for Innovation, John Brumby, said today.
The Chronic Disease Management Network (CDM-net) will improve the quality of life of thousands of local residents living with type 2 diabetes by linking people to their GPs and other healthcare providers through the internet and mobile phones to automatically monitor their health.
The Bracks Government is providing $2 million towards the establishment of CDM-net to headquarter the initiative at Barwon Health, with other funding and in-kind support coming from the Commonwealth Government and CDM-net members.
Mr Brumby said diabetes was a serious health challenge that accounted for over half of Australia’s preventable hospital treatments. Around 1.5 million Australians have type 2 diabetes, including 200,000 Victorians, which costs the nation around $3 billion annually.
“CDM-net is a world-first project that brings together healthcare providers and research bodies and ICT companies to deliver an innovative service to ensure patients are following a ‘care-plan’ – sending reminders for appointments, medication renewals and blood-glucose tests and providing continuous feedback on key health parameters,” he said.
“Barwon Health and Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Economic Studies have estimated that CDM-net’s annual financial benefits will include $3.4 million in savings from reduced hospital admissions and $13.4 million generated by increased workforce participation.”
Mr Brumby also highlighted the opportunities for local industry to expand into the rapidly growing healthcare industry, potentially worth billions for Australia in export and domestic markets over the next decade.
“CDM-net’s open, sharable, broadband-based infrastructure opens up new opportunities for local companies, especially small to medium enterprises. For example, Geelong’s growing clusters of medical, life sciences and ICT venture will be able to access new markets, technology transfer and best practice models and leverage the capability provided by other network members,” he said.
CDM-net consortium members are Barwon Health, Diabetes Australia, two local divisions of General Practice - the Australian GPs network, Victorian medical technology companies, Global Health and Precedence Healthcare, CSIRO and Deakin, Monash and Victoria Universities and Cisco, IBM and Intel.
“This project is another excellent example of how provincial Victoria can take a world leading role in developing innovative solutions with international applications,” Mr Brumby said.
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