I’ve been treating lymphoedema in a large teaching hospital in Sydney for more than 15 years. Over this period time-consuming inefficiencies within the clinic have been an ongoing source of frustration. There is frustration too, on behalf of those with lymphoedema. While the volume of research within the field of lymphoedema continues to grow, the knowledge base informing treatment decisions remains limited.Our efforts to build a knowledge base to inform clinical decisions has been hampered by inconsistencies in how change is reported. This has created an environment where assessment and treatment decisions are often resource-led and our patients face a ‘trial and error’ approach to management.
Lymbase is a clinical decision support tool designed to support therapists in gathering, understanding and presenting assessment data. We have used rigour in the research to define the data set used within the platform. Agreement on a common data set for reporting change reduces clinical variation, but more importantly, it creates a common language for dialogue and comparison which is necessary for research. New avenues for research can be created when we are permitted by the owners of this data (our patients) to utilise the (deidentified) assessment data collected as part of routine clinical care for research. Lymbase facilitates this process while also addressing inefficiencies in the clinic.
Those of us who have been treating lymphoedema for many years have had to develop our own systems to capture and report lymphoedema. We have come to rely on these hard-won systems and change can be hard. We hope, however, that you will share our vision of a future where patients have greater understanding for how their lymphoedema is progressing and treatment response. We hope, too, to establish a future where new therapists (and importantly, their patients) will not need to submit to unnecessary experiential learning. We need an evidence base to inform which treatment modalities to apply or withdraw, and when. Lymbase is designed by clinicians to support the creation of this future. Its success is dependent on your willingness to try this new approach.
Dr Robyn Sierla – Founder of Lymbase
A secure cloud-based clinical decision support system for lymphoedema, Lymbase has been designed for clinicians, by clinicians.
The Team
Dr Robyn Sierla
(BAppSc, MApplSc, PhD)
Dr Robyn Sierla is a senior lymphoedema therapist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney Local Health District, with over 15 years clinical experience. She is also a Translational Research Fellow with Sydney Health Partners and the Scientific Chair for the Australasian Lymphology Association conference, 2022. Robyn has also provided consultation on service provision for lymphoedema to the NSW government.
She has received numerous grants from Sydney Research, the Agency for Clinical Innovation and the Department of Industry.
Mythili Baker
Co-founder
Mythili Baker is Head of Innovation at Altis Consulting, a specialist data and analytics company where she combines commercial acumen, customer empathy and technical diversity, to take new ideas to market.
She has over 20 years technology and consulting experience with specialist skills developed in the areas of product management, stakeholder engagement, business development and data analytics.
The release of Lymbase would not be possible without the financial and technical support generously offered by Haddenham Healthcare*. With their history of supporting research and innovation, Haddenham saw the potential benefits for patients and clinicians, and have generously provided the necessary initial investment for the development and staged release of Lymbase. In addition they are contributing their specialist knowledge of the compression garment market to help inform the design of the garment search function.
*Haddenham Healthcare is a company specializing in the treatment of lymphoedema, chronic oedema and wound care. Their focus is on providing problem solving solutions to assist therapists in treating their patients – helping them achieve clinical effectiveness and patient compliance.
Now also partnering with:
You can now search for all your JOBST off the shelf garments and Farrow Wraps, and link through to Essity’s order portal for custom made Elvarex garments within Lymbase. JOBST requires no introduction, and their vast range of compression wear is a very welcome inclusion to the garment search engine for Lymbase.
Lymbase is excited to partner with Thuasne to feature their Mobiderm range and Autofit wraps in our search engine. You can locate the Autofit options under ‘wraps’ and all the Modbiderm garments (including the new intimate shorts for pelvic oedema) under ‘other’, where all our textured garments are located.