Bioelectronics brings aged healthcare to the home

Smart technologies will eventually reduce doctors’ visits and hospital admissions among Australia’s ageing population, according to the academic behind a new bioelectronics degree at the University of Sydney.

Dr Alistair McEwan says the bioelectronics degree at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies will train engineers to help drive down the skyrocketing health costs associated with growing numbers of elderly patients.

Bioelectronics melds biology and electronics to design and build the likes of ECG machines and 3D CT scanning equipment. The Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Bioelectronics) gives students the skills to build healthcare equipment, previously used only in hospitals, for the home.

The ratio of working aged people to those aged 65-plus in Australia will fall from the present 5:1 to 2.7:1 by 2050, according to the recent Smart Technology for Healthy Longevity report by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).

The report found gerontechnology - linking gerontology with smart technologies - can make a substantial contribution to meeting the economic and social challenges posed by changing demographics.

Dr McEwan believes wired and wireless technology can help diagnose, monitor and manage patients, with instruments connected via telephone, web-based services and databases.

The ATSE estimates home-based, self-management interventions can improve patient outcomes, halve hospital admissions and reduce doctor visits by 40%.

Demand for such medical equipment in the home is evidenced by the increasing number of consumer electronics companies entering the healthcare market.

While of particular relevance to medical devices, bioelectronics can also be applied to forensics, agriculture, finance and the motor vehicle industry.

Related postgraduate research at the school is looking at the link between nutrition in early life to the onset of cardiovascular disease in later years and is looking to build low-cost electronic devices to track nutrition both here and in the developing world.

The Bachelor of Electrical Engineering will be taught at the university from 2011.