Dr Gough Yumu Lui

Overview

Dr Lui’s research focuses on how existing technology can be adapted and applied to problems in health care. This may include early detection of disease, ongoing monitoring, improved treatment, reductions in cost, improved convenience, broader accessibility, or greater efficiency.

His research also provides the evidence needed for the adoption of technology by the health system. He looks at how to address the key barriers to digital health in order to realise its full potential for health care and, ultimately, relieve pressure on healthcare services.

Dr Lui’s research interests span the fields of electronics, embedded systems, internet-of-things, medical internet-of-things, wireless communication, healthcare, mental health, digital health, healthy ageing, smart sensing, computing, artificial intelligence.

He is a key member of the LinkLab initiative within The MARCS Institute.

Why It Matters

Digital health promises to revolutionise health care.

Technology has the potential to reduce the disease burden in the community, improve access to health care, maintain higher levels of vigilance over health resulting in early detection and prevention of disease, treat certain conditions directly, improve training of surgical staff, and improve operational efficiencies leading to reduced costs and clinical staff time being better spent on patients.

However, this potential can only be realised when we have solid evidence of its capabilities and benefits, understand its limitations, and have co-developed products with all stakeholders to meet real needs.

Dr Lui’s research understands clinicians’ unmet clinical needs, prioritises them, and identifies existing technology that can be applied to solve these problems. From there, he prototypes solutions, generates supporting evidence of their effectiveness, and investigates potential for commercialisation.

His research into digital health solutions involving smart sensors aims to enable new, innovative models of care, allowing those with health conditions to be monitored continuously, comfortably and non-invasively while reducing costs, increasing data collection to make evidence-based decisions, and improving accessibility and quality of care - ultimately leading to improved quality of life.

I imagine a future where health care is proactive, using feedback from sensors to form healthy habits and detect early signs of health decline.

Impact

An ongoing multi-year collaboration with Liverpool Hospital/South Western Sydney Local Health District has resulted in several impacts for patients, healthcare staff and the health system.

Dr Lui helped to pinpoint the root cause of a problem with blocked flow in elastomeric infusion bottles. This work ensured diabetic foot disease patients reliably receive the medication they need at home through their Hospital-in-the-Home program, resulting in a 99% reduction in occurrence rate and avoiding an estimated 86 cases annually.

Another impact is the development and trials of the Smart Glove for Surgical Skills training. This aims to address a gap in feedback for surgical trainees by instrumenting hands with bespoke sensors that can capture and illustrate the difference between experienced and novice surgeons in order to improve education.

A collaboration with staff of the School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences led to the development of a bespoke VR cycling simulation game with Liverpool Hospital’s Brain Injury Unit, which is currently undergoing trials. An expansion to other modes of rehabilitation and roll-out to community clinics is being considered. Preliminary results show that the system improves satisfaction, engagement and performance with rehabilitation programs, which should lead to improved outcomes.

Dr Lui is also leading the SmartER emergency room patient monitoring concept in collaboration with intensivists from Liverpool Hospital. This integrates the Forehead-Sternum Electronic Recorder (FOSTER) wearable device that measures vital signs such as heart rate, respiration, blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure trend and surface temperature, with a LoRaWAN-based low-power wireless network and an AI-powered clinical dashboard to reduce the risk to patients who experience long waits in emergency. This concept is currently being codesigned and co-developed, and is expected to be trialled in the near future.

He has also supported the development and clinical trials of the HeMo peripheral arterial disease monitor, a wearable device consisting of a smart textile band which wraps around the calf muscle and can be used to monitor blood flow. This innovation is especially important for monitoring of patients suffering from diabetes, where peripheral arterial disease is a leading cause for incurable ulcers and limb amputations.

The range of needs can be quite varied, with a related need being the convenient ongoing measurement of gait velocity as an indicator of diabetic foot disease progression. Dr Lui was involved in the development of a prototype solution using optical sensors, which is currently being further refined. Similarly, he is also involved as part of a multi-team effort in development of a CPR training device which utilises similar sensor technology.

Career

Dr Lui holds a B.Eng (Photovoltaics and Solar Energy, Hons I) from UNSW Sydney (2011). He researched a photovoltaic-powered point-of-use water disinfection using ultraviolet LEDs, Wi-Fi positioning systems (under a Taste of Research scholarship), and was a laboratory demonstrator for digital and embedded systems design at UNSW.

He was also formerly a research assistant and writing fellow with the Water Research Centre at UNSW.

Dr Lui graduated with a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UNSW Sydney in 2016 under APA, ERA and ARENA scholarships.

Other Qualifications

• CSIRO ON Prime Innovation Program (2019)
• Leanstack Continuous Innovation Certified (2020)

Leadership Roles

• LinkLab Member, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development
• Translation Enabler, Frontiers Technology Clinical Academic Group, Maridulu Budyari Gumal (SPHERE)
• Work Plan Committee Member, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development
• ECR Working Group, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development
• HDR Co-Supervisor

Research Career Highlights

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969714007967
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969716302509
• https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5955283
• https://mental.jmir.org/2022/9/e37354
• https://journals.lww.com/journalofinfusionnursing/Fulltext/2021/09000/Elastomeric_Pump_Infusion_Failures_Caused_by.4.aspx
• https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/22/17/6689
• https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/8/1874/htm

Smart Gloves Videos

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_gULbj4rM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYVMYnSbA_g

Smart Gloves Links

• https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/future-makers/issue-four/a-safer-handover
• https://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/media-releases/smart-glove
• https://createdigital.org.au/training-surgeons-with-the-next-generation-of-surgical-gloves/
• https://english.news.cn/20220324/05a216e0cf34476aa85258edaef0c551/c.html
• https://www.wearable-technologies.com/news/western-sydney-university-researchers-develop-smart-gloves-for-safe-surgery
• https://itwire.com/science-news/health/engineers-develop-surgical-glove-built-with-sensors-for-surgeon-trainees.html
• https://geektech.me/australia-has-created-gloves-that-will-teach-future-surgeons-how-to-work-correctly/
• https://newatlas.com/wearables/smart-surgical-gloves-medical-students-hand-movements/
• https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/facility-admin/news/liverpool-hospital-trials-smart-gloves-to-train-surgeons-774254661
• https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/smart-glove-to-train-young-surgeons/
• https://www.miragenews.com/smart-glove-to-train-young-surgeons-749671/

Personal Blog

https://goughlui.com

Collaboration

Dr Lui works as a Biomedical Engineer-in-Residence and collaborates closely with Liverpool Hospital, the South Western Sydney Local Health District and The Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research.

Working in close proximity to clinicians enables Dr Lui and his team to learn a lot about the challenges faced by staff working in health care and more about the diverse population they serve.

Collaboration also ensures the best solutions to real-world problems. Through collaboration, a co-design process can result in more successful outcomes by ensuring what is produced is desired by and acceptable to the intended user.

Collaboration increases the pool of human and technical resources available to a project while unlocking new funding opportunities. It also leads to the potential of forming longer-lived friendships and networking connections that would assist in the formation of high-performance teams to address the next challenge.

Dr Lui welcomes collaborations across all industries, especially health care and allied health, medical devices companies, insurance, livestock, aged care, education, health insurance and electronics.

We are very open to understanding the needs of potential collaborators, as well as assisting them to connect with the right people within our institute, our university and our larger network more broadly. We set aside time to have small group chats with anyone who wishes to do so, working through their needs and fleshing out potential business models to capture potential opportunities and assemble teams as necessary.

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