I lost a dear friend to preventable disease because she did not have access to the relevant technology that could have helped her live well with her condition. This made me realise that we urgently need to develop innovative methods to assist people live better, longer lives – even with chronic conditions. This has a profound impact towards shaping my passion and determination to become a podiatry academic and a growing leader in eHealth technology, applicable to daily clinical practice. I aspire to establish my future podiatry research career by providing important contributions to the existing knowledge of how to best improve health care while introducing new cost-effective smart technologies.
My future goals are to provide new effective and easily accessible eHealth solutions to implement the self-management of chronic and autoimmune diseases. My focus is to further enhance the role of Podiatry within the different health multidisciplinary teams and to further solidify partnerships with key industry leaders to ensure that my research outcomes can be easily accessible, rapidly translated to the community and sustainable.
Originally from Biella (Italy), Dr Andrea Coda completed undergraduate training as a Podiatrist in 2007 at the prestigious Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh, UK). He worked extensively in different private clinics predominantly in the area podopaediatric, diabetes and sport-injuries. Whilst in the UK, he also worked as an academic and researcher at Queen Margaret University. As part of Dr Coda's PhD, he successfully completed a multi-centre randomised controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the clinical effectiveness of foot orthoses on pain, quality of life and gait dynamics of patients diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). This published work is providing new cost-effective research evidence for podiatrists working within the paediatric rheumatology multidisciplinary team.
In July 2013, Dr Coda started working as an academic at the University of Newcastle, School of Health and Science (SHS), Faculty of Health and Medicine. Since then, he has coordinated and lectured across all years of the programs; including clinics, lectures, laboratory classes and tutorials. He is the course coordinator for the End-Hons Research Program (Central Coast, SHS) which gives an unparalleled opportunity to students to develop the skills necessary to become successful early career researchers.
Between 2015 and 2017 Dr Coda served as the ‘Research Ethics Advisor’ (REA) for the Faculty of Health and Medicine and member of the 'Human Research Ethic Committee (HREC) at UON.
Dr Coda is an active member of the Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour (PRCHB) at the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI). In 2016, he established new strategic links between the ‘European Dementia Consortium’ and HMRI. As an Associate Investigator, he was involved with a successful NHMRC grant (APP1137807) 'Boosting Dementia Research Grant' (worth $1,312,455) that aims to implement a web-based program to detect and meet the needs of people with dementia and their caregivers living in rural areas.
Dr Coda is passionate about establishing strategic links with leading eHealth Institutions and this has led him to undertake two International Fellowships in Europe. In 2018 he was appointed Conjoint Senior Lecturer from the University of Manresa-Barcelona (Spain) and was the youngest international funding member at the ‘Research and Innovation eHealth Centre’ (Barcelona). This enabled him to instigate new strategic industry connections with telecommunications leaders such as ‘Vodafone’ in the effort to expand research investments to fund UON eHealth projects in Paediatric Rheumatology, Diabetes and Dementia.
Dr Coda is committed to developing his skills and capabilities as supervisor to best support his HDR students with their research journey. He is a highly enthusiastic and caring supervisor that actively encourages his HDR students (Hons, MPhil, PhD) in reaching their full potential.
I am extremely passionate and determined to progress my career at UON by becoming an enthusiastic Podiatry leader whilst successfully integrating innovative eHealth technologies applicable to daily clinical practice.
Fully understanding the impact that chronic and autoimmune diseases have on patients and their families/carer, has long been a challenge for clinicians. Harnessing the use of smart validated technologies has the potential to increase the understanding of disease patterns and promptly addressing issues (such as drug compliance, adherence to physical activity etc) thereby improving the overall well-being for patients. I personally pioneered an ehealth platform (www.interactiveclinics.com) that, for the first time is capable of reliably recording meaningful clinical data ‘live’ – anytime, anywhere, whilst simultaneously being accessible to patients, parents/carers and allied health professionals. This technology is currently being utilised as part of different PhDs projects in Paediatric Rheumatology and Type 2 Diabetes.
My entrepreneurial desire and determination in developing new technologies are best demonstrated in being able to patent a revolutionary wearable product with a leading Hunter based industry partner (CoBond ltd). After two years of researching and prototyping, I was successful in securing a new international patent in collaboration with Newcastle Innovation for a new footwear product.
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