Professor Niranjan Bidargaddi

Niranjan Bidargaddi is a computer science engineer with over 20 years of experience leading digital health research, development, and the translation of innovative solutions into real-world applications.

As the co-director of the Flinders Digital Health Research Centre and Head of flagship program in Health Translation SA, he leads a team that produces prototype health service innovations. These innovations showcase information-surfacing overlays on existing digital infrastructures - the building blocks for offering higher value healthcare despite resource scarcity, growing medical knowledge, and rising patient volume and complexities.

Niranjan's research interests are in how to surface health information in the human mind in order to reduce avoidable suffering, for patients, providers, and the public alike.

To tackle this complex issue in real-world settings, he has established an integrative research program that: (a) is deeply embedded within the healthcare ecosystem; (b) spans life course; (c) combines elements of human factors, software design, artificial intelligence, data privacy, and ethics; (d) aligns with financial, regulatory, and policy landscape.

Within this program, his team uses a range of research methods to study how people and technologies work together to process health information during care interactions. This nuanced, holistic observation may uncover new relational insights and interconnected solutions, that may be missed when looking at individual parts of the process in isolation.

To rapidly bring these solutions into practice, Niranjan has launched a highly configurable platform (CareMappr) which produces information overlays that surface pertinent health information at the right time, to right minds, in the right form, in right channels. Its ability to draw insights from diverse places and reach patients, clinicians, and caregivers allows the platform to be applied across a range of healthcare domains, with projects curently underway in mental health, chronic pain, endometriosis, diabetes, medication safety and sleep, amongst others.