Veritas Health Innovation Receives Funding to Accelerate Integration of Research into Practice

MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Veritas Health Innovation Ltd is pleased to announce that it has received grant funding of AU$2,000,000 to support its mission to bring research into practice faster than ever before. The grant comes from three leading Australian foundations: The Ian Potter Foundation, the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation and the Paul Ramsay Foundation. 

The grants will support the product development and global impact of Covidence, Veritas's online systematic review collaboration platform. With over 85,000 users, Covidence represents the largest evidence community in the world and is currently used by leading universities and hospitals around the world, including Harvard University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and many others.

Covidence is a revolutionary new approach to the synthesis of research evidence, streamlining and standardizing the systematic review process and accelerating the impact of evidence on the world's health and well-being. This funding will allow Veritas to enhance the Covidence platform, incorporate artificial intelligence technology, and expand access, including to researchers based in low and middle-income countries. 

Veritas CEO and Senior Research Fellow at Cochrane Australia, Monash University, Julian Elliott said, "We're thrilled to receive such generous support from The Ian Potter Foundation, the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation and the Paul Ramsay Foundation. We are now focused on creating significant global growth and delivering sustained impact on the use of research for better decisions in health, education and other fields of human well-being. Through Covidence we are working to ensure that research findings translate faster into life-saving action and improved social outcomes." 

Chair of The Ian Potter Foundation, Mr. Charles Goode said, "Covidence's global user base is using advanced systematic review capability to accelerate research translation into tangible patient outcomes.  This latest support from The Ian Potter Foundation recognises the opportunity for Veritas to continue to increase the Covidence customer base while using artificial intelligence technology to enhance the quality, functionality and speed of the product offering. This is all in the pursuit of a sustainable earnings base for an innovative social enterprise that will allow Covidence customers to deliver improved patient health outcomes for many years to come."

Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation chief executive officer Catherine Brown said, "Veritas has achieved a huge amount already through Covidence and the development of new technology to upgrade this online platform further is an important next step. Covidence is a highly innovative approach to a significant problem in translating medical and other research as quickly as possible to patient treatment. The project has many flow on benefits to the community's health. It is exciting that this Melbourne-based social enterprise has developed this solution for health researchers in Australia and internationally with a solid plan to achieve financial sustainability over a short period of time. The Foundation was pleased to fund this project from the Eldon & Anne Foote Trust."

Professor Glyn Davis, CEO of the Paul Ramsay Foundation said, "The Foundation is pleased to support Covidence through this exciting phase of its development. This technology has the potential to improve healthcare in many communities around Australia by translating the latest research into clinical practice."

The grants reaffirm Veritas' success in launching Australian technology onto a global stage, becoming the most widely used systematic review software platform in the world. Covidence has been developed in partnership with Cochrane, the world's most trusted source of health evidence, and is a core component of Cochrane's review production toolkit.  

About Veritas Health Innovation Ltd 

Veritas Health Innovation is an Australian DGR1 social enterprise with a mission to improve scientific knowledge for health and well-being. To achieve its mission, Veritas has developed an online systematic review platform, Covidence, in partnership with Cochrane, the world's premier network for health evidence synthesis. Covidence is helping systematic reviewers around the world get their reviews done faster and with less effort. Covidence is the foundation for a new approach to systematic review, enabling more efficient evidence synthesis and accelerating the impact of evidence on decision making for health and well-being. www.covidence.org  

About The Ian Potter Foundation

The Ian Potter Foundation is one of Australia's major philanthropic foundations. The Foundation makes grants nationally to support charitable organizations working to benefit the community across a wide range of sectors including the arts, environment, science, medical research, education and community well-being. The Ian Potter Foundation aims to support and promote a vibrant, healthy, fair and sustainable community for the benefit of all Australians. www.ianpotter.org.au  

About Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation 

As Australia's largest independent community foundation, Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation works to inspire philanthropy to influence and support positive social change. The Foundation was established in 1923 by Lord Mayor Sir John Swanson to grow a perpetual fund to help solve the most challenging community issues of the day. Annually the Foundation provides grants of more than $9.8 million to charitable organizations to increase life opportunities and promote social inclusion.  Our grants and initiatives focus on priorities within four Impact Areas including Homelessness & Affordable Housing, Education & Employment, Environment & Sustainability, and Healthy & Resilient Communities. To learn about how Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation works to make positive changes in our community visit www.lmcf.org.au  

About Paul Ramsay Foundation 

The Paul Ramsay Foundation seeks to identify and partner with individuals, communities and organizations working to create an Australia where people can overcome disadvantage and realise their potential. www.paulramsayfoundation.org.au

Contact Information:

Covidence
Trish Joyce, Academic and Marketing Manager
[email protected]  
720-351-8946

The Ian Potter Foundation  
Sara Hearn, Communications Manager
[email protected] 

Paul Ramsay Foundation
Michael Buckland, Public Affairs Associate
[email protected] 

Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation
Catherine Brown, CEO
[email protected] 

SOURCE Veritas Health Innovation Ltd