The Pacific Rim Health Innovations Conference (PRHIC) 2022 co-organized by The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University (FAH-SYSU) and the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) was successfully held in the hospital from September 21 to 24.

Pacific Rim Health Innovations Conference (PRHIC) 2022

The conference focused on robotic surgery, digital health, and response to public health emergencies. It consisted of four symposiums of different themes: “Global Lessons from COVID-19: Directions for Research and Interventions”, “Robotic Surgery: Global Advances”, “Advances in Health Informatics and Machine Learning: Reimagining the Use of Data for Health Care”, and “Innovation in Digital Health Technology: Reshaping Health Care Delivery”.

The participants included experts from top institutions in the Pacific Rim, such as the University of California at Berkeley and Davis (USA), Johns Hopkins University (USA), Mayo Clinic (USA), University of Toronto (Canada), National Cancer Center Hospital (Japan), Singapore General Hospital (Singapore), The University of Hong Kong (China), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (China), Chinese PLA General Hospital (China), West China Hospital of Sichuan University (China), and Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital of Zhejiang University (China), etc. The conference also invited medical institutions from the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. More than 100 overseas participants from 29 countries (including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, New Zealand, Italy, Turkey, Belarus, Thailand, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc.) joined virtually and discussed on promoting digital healthcare and innovation for human health and wellbeing.

International Collaboration and Exchange for Human Health and Wellbeing

Xiao Haipeng, Executive Vice President of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) and President of FAH-SYSU, Luo Teng, Secretary of Party Committee and other leaders from FAH-SYSU, Katherine Yelick (Vice Chancellor for Research, UC Berkeley), Jonna Mazet, (Vice Provost - Grand Challenges, UC Davis), Ding-Jo Currie (President of Lingnan Foundation), and LI Xinsheng (Vice President of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.), attended the opening ceremony.

Xiao Haipeng, Executive Vice President of Sun Yat-sen University and President of the First Affiliated Hospital delivered a speech.

“Following the steering development strategy of our country, FAH-SYSU will continue to deepen and expand collaboration and exchange with international partners, such as UC Berkeley and UC Davis. Through such collaborations, we are hoping to find solutions to overcome healthcare challenges, and make the world a better place for health equity, justice and inclusiveness.” Xiao Haipeng noted in his opening remarks. Since the establishment of partnership between FAH-SYSU and UC Berkeley in 2021, the two parties have carried out a series of activities in the fields of robotic surgery and digital health. He stressed that the conference would be a great opportunity to enhance international academic cooperation and exchange, facilitate deep integration of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) with medical development, accelerate the gathering of talents and resources in medical innovation, and work together to improve the accessibility of medical services, the ability of diagnosis and treatment of critical and complicated diseases, and the response to public health emergencies.

Katherine Yelick, Ding-Jo Currie, and Li Xinsheng addressed the audience respectively.

International Expertise to Discuss on Medical Innovation and Development

The symposiums were chaired by Kuang Ming (Vice President of FAH-SYSU and Dean of Zhongshan School of Medicine, SYSU) and David Lindeman (Director, CITRIS Health, UC Berkeley). Moderators included Wang Haibo (Vice Dean, Institute of Precision Medicine, FAH-SYSU), Bahareh Nejad (Director, Division of Robotic Surgery, UC Davis Health Medical Center), and Nick Anderson (Chief of the Division of Health Informatics in the Department of Public Health Sciences, UC Davis School of Medicine).

Symposium 1 Global Lessons from COVID-19: Directions for Research and Interventions

Symposium 1 focused on “Global Lessons from COVID-19”. Brian Garibaldi (Director of Biocontainment Unit, Johns Hopkins University) shared the practical experience of Johns Hopkins in applying precision medicine to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Jonna Mazet (Vice Provost – Grand Challenges of UC Davis) gave a keynote speech and shared the thoughts on using “one health” concept to address the grand challenges of the present time through the lessons learned from the COVID-19. Bradley Pollock (Associate Dean and Rolkin Chair in Public Health Sciences, UC Davis Health) shared his experience in how UC Davis worked closely to fight against COVID-19 pandemic. Luo Fengming (Executive Deputy Party Secretary, West China Hospital of Sichuan University) shared the countermeasures in a large university hospital in China.

David Lindeman (Director, CITRIS Health, UC Berkeley), Wang Haibo (Vice Dean at Institute of Precision Medicine, FAH-SYSU) and Wang Ji, (Professor at the Institute of Precision Medicine, FAH-SYSU) participated in the heated panel discussion on the direction of COVID-19 research and intervention and proposed a series of feasible concepts, ideas, and perspectives for public health emergency response.

Symposium 2 Robotic Surgery: Global Advances

To support the cultivation of top international talents in robotic surgery, the conference invited Zhang Xu (Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Department of Urology, Chinese PLA General Hospital), Shunsuke Tsukamoto (Assistant Chief of the Department of Colorectal Surgery, National Cancer Center Hospital of Japan), and Jerry Chen (Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery, Singapore General Hospital) to explain the application of robotic surgery and demonstrate the related techniques and operations. Bahareh Nejad (Director of the Division of Robotic Surgery, UC Davis Health Medical Center) and Darla Hutton (Vice President of Commercial Operations and Marketing, Intuitive Asia) shared their experience in dynamic project planning and hardware, software, and innovation.

Shunsuke Tsukamoto, Bahareh Nejad, Darla Hutton, and Jerry Chen discussed the global challenges of robotic surgery in depth from multiple perspectives.

Symposium 3 Advances in Health Informatics and Machine Learning: Reimagining the Use of Data for Health Care

Irwin King (Chairman of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong) highlighted federated learning for smart medicine and digital health in his keynote speech. Vladimir Filkov (Director for Translational Data Science, DataLab, UC Davis) gave unique insights into the development of synthetic health data and clinical research. The two experts also discussed the research trends of real-world data with Wang Haibo and Nick Anderson.

Symposium 4 Innovation in Digital Health Technology: Reshaping Health Care Delivery

In this symposium, Xiao Haipeng (Executive Vice President of SYSU and President of FAH-SYSU) delivered a keynote speech on “the Application of AI Diagnosis in Thyroid Cancer”. Zuojun Shen (Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) of The University of Hong Kong) gave a speech on digital twin in medicine. Kevin Bennet (Chair of Engineering Division and Co-director of Neural Engineering, Mayo Clinic) specifically shared the medical innovation management at Mayo Clinic, the essence of Mayo culture, and its multi-campus management model. In addition, Katherine Kim (Principal of Consumer Health Informatics and Health Science, MITRE Corporation), Carrie Shaw (CEO & Founder of Embodied Labs) and Allison Sekuler (Sandra A Rotman Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute and Professor of University of Toronto) gave keynote speeches on a wide range of topics such as the development in digital health technologies, innovative practices in health care, mobile applications to enhance the quality of healthcare services, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to reshape patient training, etc.

Huang He (Vice President of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine) joined the panel discussion and explored the challenges and opportunities facing digital medical technology with the speakers above. The panelists shared their thoughts and views on digital medical innovation for improving healthcare services.

The PRHIC was co-organized by FAH-SYSU and UC Berkeley in the context of the global pandemic. Participants from home and abroad gathered online to discuss innovation in intelligent health care. Leadership and department heads of FAH-SYSU attended on site; over 100 international experts from 29 countries, including China, the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, New Zealand, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan watched the live streaming of the conference.