Company Profile
The International Spine Centre® (TISC)
Company Overview
The International Spine Centre® was founded in Adelaide, South Australia in April 2013 to offer a novel interdisciplinary approach to advance healthcare delivery. TISC expert clinicians treat & collaborate under one roof, delivering specialist spine services to those who are suffering from pain & disability due to their spinal condition. The organisation is 30 people strong & continues to grow & innovate, believing in incremental continuous development for its people & services. Care is delivered to private, compensable & uninsured patients across Australia & internationally.
Team TISC offers services across pillars of care: Surgery, Medicine, Movement & Mind
Neurosurgery & Spinal Surgery:
Ranges of surgical procedures to ease the burden of spinal conditions utilising contemporary global technologies & robotic applications in addition to expertly trained extensively experienced international surgeons.
Complex Spine Surgery:
Our joint neurosurgeon & orthopaedic surgical service for deformity of the spine.
Neuro-Urology: our specialised bladder surgical service which includes on-site urodynamic investigations & bladder function analysis to help regain patient’s dignity & freedom. Our Registered Nurse (RN) supports this clinical offering.
Pain Management:
Our consultant pain physicians offer pain diagnosis, medication analysis, treatment rationalisation & interventional pain techniques.
Spinal Clinicians (SClin) (GPwER):
Our advanced practice General Practitioner (GP) role allowing patients rapid access to services to be examined, investigated & diagnosed without the need for a family GP referral. Our training programme for these roles has been running for 5 years with oversight from the TISC Clinical Lead & TISC Director of Research & Education. Clinical coaching sessions are scheduled monthly with continuous clinical supervision occurring through our digital infrastructure. This role is integrated with surgical assisting to offer continuity of care. For patients who enter our services through this channel, the SClin works closely with the patient’s own GP, communicating the expert management plan endorsed by the Consultant Specialist.
Spinal Rehabilitation Services:
Our consultant rehabilitation specialists assess patient rehabilitation needs & help patients to live their lives as independently as possible.
Neuro-Muscle:
Our onsite injectable Botox clinic to assess patient’s limb spasticity & recover function to minimise the frequency & duration of spasms which disrupt everyday tasks & quality of life.
Dietitian: Health Optimisation is at the heart of this service. Motivational technique is applied to assist patients to implement solutions and adopt eating patterns which are sustainable for their lifestyle.
Psychology:
Integrated psychological approaches utilising a variety of methods to assist with life’s challenges. Pro-actively managing difficulties such as anxiety & depression & resetting behaviours & thought processes when experiencing relentless pain.
Physiotherapy & Exercise Physiology:
Our ‘movement’ team uses our on-site Olympic gym & weights equipment to rehabilitate patients pre & post-surgery. Using advanced ViMove™ technology to assess & film range of motion, strength & conditioning exercise is used to help patients move freely again. Programmes & maintenance schedules are offered if surgery is not an option.
General Physician Service:
Consultant Physician oversees chronic disease management ensuring all medical problems are addressed to optimise health & ensure peri-operative assessment is key to enhanced surgical outcomes at TISC.
TeleTISC™:
Our telehealth service, offering telephone & video consultation in the comfort of your own home.
Medical Devices: At TISC our clinicians implant a range of devices & technologies to manage pain & intractable symptoms: Spinal Cord Stimulators, Sacral Nerve Stimulators, ReActiv8 multifidus muscle stimulators, Baclofen Pumps & Analgesic Pumps.
Medico-Legal@TISC:
Our clinical experts are qualified in Permanent Impairment Assessment (PIA) & Independent Medical Examination (IME). We also undertake standard medico-legal reporting for all patient groups, requesting lawyers, organisations & injured workers compensation schemes.
Second Opinion Medicine (SOM) Services:
TISC clinicians participate in offering second opinions to clarify diagnosis & treatment pathways for patients concerned about precision in their management or conflicting opinion on diagnosis, choice of surgical procedure & treatment management options.
Company History
TISC is almost eight years old & has witnessed exponential organisational growth since start up in 2013. The interdisciplinary model attracts many discerning patients & referrers who value our patient centric principles & philosophy of care. Our brand resonates nationally & internationally. Our focus is ‘surgery, medicine, movement & mind’ with specialty & sub-specialty disciplines working together to help our patients live a ‘life beyond pain’. Patient survey results show that The International Spine Centre® consistently meets patient needs, requirements & expectations.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Establishing a novel interdisciplinary model of care & General Practitioner with Extended Role (GPwER) in Spine training programme.
Benefits
Benefits: Team TISC: Support Services
Executive:
Business management which applies approaches from contemporary commercial thinking, external to traditional medical practice management. The team encompasses Governance, Finance, General Management (GM) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) roles. TISC outsources external expertise for projects in strategic marketing, marketing, social media campaigns, strategic Human Resource (HR) management & business coaching. TISC holds memberships with The Executive Connection (TEC) & Business SA.
Administration:
Horizontal team structure comprising of team members recruited from industries beyond healthcare. TISC Admin brings skills & competencies mastered in businesses not traditionally associated with medicine.
Academic:
TISC University™ is governed by a Professorial role of Director of Research & Education. Educational outputs such as the bi-monthly interdisciplinary clinical Minds on Spines™ meeting are held to enhance organisational learning. Clinical Coaching for the SClin team takes place monthly & all TISC disciplines rotate through clinic & theatres to further deepen their understanding of the specialty of spine. TISC offers a Clinical Research Fellowship per annum for a Consultant Spinal Surgeon with a personalised curriculum developed to meet organisational needs & personal research interests. The SClin training programme & Curriculum is delivered by the TISC Clinical Lead & The Director of Research & Education. Applications for formal accreditation of the fellowships are submitted. Audit is an important feature of TISC’s work. Areas of current focus with audit projects underway:
• Patient Satisfaction with TISC Spinal Clinicians
• Assessment of patient suitability for TeleTISC™ modalities
• The use and abuse of CT and spinal imaging through analysis of General Practitioner referrals
• Review of imaging, case selection, operative indications & practice using a Spine Panel
• Establishing an International Registry for ReActiv8
Infrastructure:
TISC adopts & executes work using digital technologies where possible to deliver speed & agile processes to provide all patient services:
• Genie
• Transcription
• Digital patient pathways/journeys
• Microsoft Teams & Power Suite, BI, robotics, applications
• VoIP communication technology
• Cloud technologies
Environment:
The TISC interior is intentionally designed to delight & distract from anxiety & pain. TISC offers an art gallery patient journey experience. Care is delivered in a 500 sq/metre warehouse with on-site parking facilities. The TISC on-site gym is fully equipped & has free weight Olympic training apparatus, trap bar, kettle bells, medicine balls & aerobic equipment.
Systemisation:
TISC actively designs administrative systems & processes to deliver care in an effective & timely fashion.
Leadership:
All senior administration & clinical roles undertake intensive, immersive training in leadership principles & personal behaviours to accentuate leadership skills across the organisation.
Thought Leadership:
TISC is a disruptive brand, reputable for its clinical integrity & business creativity.
