Prof. Anthony Maeder holds a PhD in Software Engineering from Monash University and a MSc in Computer Science from University of KwaZulu-Natal. His initial career was in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, until he transitioned to Health Informatics in 2004 as the inaugural Research Director of the CSIRO Australian eHealth Research Centre. He has served on the Standards Australia Health Informatics Technical Committee from 2006 and has represented Australia in this area at the International Standards Organisation. He moved to Western Sydney University in 2008 as Professor of Health Informatics, where he founded the Telehealth Research and Innovation Laboratory. He was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair Fellowship to Kansas State University on the topic of Health Behaviour Change in 2015. In 2016 he was appointed Premier’s Research Fellow and Professor in Digital Health Systems at Flinders University to establish the Flinders Digital Health Research Centre there, which he co-Directed until his retirement in 2021.

Title of Speech: “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health: Challenges and Directions”

The potential roles of Artificial Intelligence algorithms in support of many aspects of healthcare have been widely discussed, but their development and adoption at scale has been modest by comparison.  A limitation of the discourse on AI usage is that it tends to focus on one of three areas: clinical, scientific, or societal.  Consequently proposed AI contributions often meet roadblocks to adoption which are imposed by their broader context of application. This presentation will argue that bigger gains from AI could be achieved by taking a systems perspective.  Some examples of issues from recent emerging AI trends in healthcare will be given for illustration.