PETER Mastello is undaunted at becoming the Hunter's first clinical informatician.
"I do well under pressure," the 36-year-old says.
Mr Mastello's new position will bolster the region's health and medical researchers and is the result of a new partnership between Port Waratah Coal Services, Hunter Medical Research Institute and Hunter New England Health. Port Waratah is providing more than $300,000 over four years from its Community Investment Partnership Programme to part fund the role at HMRI.
Mr Mastello will assist researchers to unlock and interpret the wealth of existing health system data. One of his priorities will be linking data across disparate and unconnected data bases and finding patterns in clinical data sets. By making aggregated and anonymous patient data more available, researchers can identify new clusters of disease or answer important questions to improve community health. The data and trend analysis will help HMRI and researchers to identify research priorities.
As a pharmacist in the public health system, Mr Mastello saw the use of a lot of data and found his "appetite for its potential application". He obtained a Masters in Information Technology at the University of Newcastle and is an Information Lead at Hunter New England Health, a role in which he coordinates access to data and collates clinical data in line with relevant ethics and governance guidelines for clinical research and high level data analysis.
He views his new role as one of working in tandem with researchers and clinicians to build a practice with regard to using critical data: "At present, we use it for a primary purpose to provide clinicians access to [it] ... but it's such a valuable resource for other things, particularly research," he said.
Port Waratah CEO, Hennie du Plooy, said the use of big data, "clinical informatics", was rapidly growing and had the potential to encourage private sector investment in research, such as pharmaceutical companies investing in drug trials in the Hunter.
Mr du Plooy said there were benefits to Port Waratah and the community from partnerships such as the one it had with HMRI.
"For Port Waratah, a partnership like this demonstrates to our local stakeholders that we make a broad contribution to our host community; that our commitment is about more than the industry we support and its economic benefits - it extends to the wellbeing, development and sustainability of the regional community and its people over the long term," he said.
Prof Carlford said HMRI's partnerships with business helped to gain other funding to "offer hope and find answers that save lives."
For faster access to the latest Newcastle news download our NEWCASTLE HERALD APP and sign up for breaking news, sport and what's on sent directly to your email
IN THE NEWS
