About

I’m Mark Merolli, a passionate Physiotherapist, and digital health and informatics professional. I’m an active clinician, university teaching academic, research fellow, and consultant.

My clinical background as a Physiotherapist has been rewarding and grounding. By way of career journey, after years focussing on clinical practice exclusively, I was drawn in by the paradigm shift I was witnessing both with my own patients and in the wider community – a push enabled by technology. I’ve always considered myself an early adopter. During a stint living and practicing abroad in the United Kingdom, I was fortunate enough to gain experience working in digital publishing alongside my clinical work. This parallel experience to clinical practice was invaluable and provided a foothold to explore and consider the ‘digital’ in ‘health’. I gained extensive knowledge web technology, social media, web development, SEO, digital analytics and, digital strategy. By doing this, I was better able to conceptualise the digital landscape and relate it back to my passion – healthcare.

All of my experiences have led me to align several projects to the digital health space. I have a PhD in this arena. My expertise covers a range of technologies and facets as they apply to healthcare and the workforce (especially consumer-centric technologies that influence participation in health – mHealth, apps, web, social media, smart sensing, telehealth, serious games, and more).

I lecture and teach in physiotherapy, conduct research, strategise, speak and provide thought leadership on several aspects of digital health to various health organisations, entities and individuals. 

I also have formal qualifications in digital health and informatics, such as being a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Digital Health (FAIDH), am a Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA), and have been the Chair of both the AIDH Victorian Branch Committee and the International Medical Informatics Association – Participatory Health and Social Media Working Group (IMIA – PHSM).

A passion of mine is to connect with likeminded health professionals, individuals, and other stakeholders who are interested in this big world we now call ‘digital health’. As technologies continue to intertwine with healthcare, it’s important we’re equipped with the knowledge and understanding to operate confidently in this environment and get the most out of it for our patients (safely and effectively). My overall vision is to connect with, educate and up-skill rehab & exercise health professionals across a variety of digital health areas and to help solve practical solutions in future models of healthcare for patients. 

My Mission: “To connect rehab & exercise health professionals and patients with digital health”

My Credo: “For health professionals..by a health professional”