Talking HealthTech

RACGP President Dr Harry Nespolon has passed away aged 57 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He died peacefully in his sleep nine months after first being diagnosed. Dr Nespolon was great advocate for General Practice in technology, and supporter of healthtech innovation in Australia. A wonderful clinician and businessman, taken from us way too soon. When Pete from Talking HealthTech last with Dr Nespolon back in November 2019, the idea that Medicare funded telehealth would be a reality only 5 months later seems almost unthinkable, but it came to fruition thanks to his tireless efforts to instigate meaningful change at a policy level. Harry has paved the way for great developments within primary care for years to come. He will be missed.

With me today is Henrik Molin. He’s the CEO of Physitrack, a patient engagement technology company that he co-founded in 2012. Physitrack was initially a side hustle for Henrik in parallel to a career in investment management. He attributes the success he has had in life to the fact he has always had a side hustle. In fact, he believes everyone should have one! During this interview, learn about the extreme rapid growth that Phystrack saw when COVID hit (200% of one year’s growth in only six weeks?! 🤯), and what they learnt during the process. Also hear about the lesser known ‘secret lives of Molin’ including his band’s entries to Eurovisoin, and his own best selling financial fiction that once outsold JK Rowling (in Sweden, but it still counts 🇸🇪 😉) For detailed show notes from the episode, click here.

Dr Chris Jones, Founder and Director of HosPortal, who are all about better management of healthcare staff by allowing better communication. Chris is like the double threat of healthtech - a software developer / computer programmer turned doctor, which means that the software solutions we creates directly address the needs of clinicians and solve some genuine problems in healthcare. In this episode you will hear all about Hosportal and the problems it solves for healthcare professionals and organisations. You will hear Chris’ story and how he came into his passion for technology for healthcare. You will also hear about the impact of COVID-19 on the hospital environment in Australia, as well as the adoption of technology within healthcare. Click here full episode notes.

Rachel de Sain is an internationally regarded digital strategist and thought leader on the future of health and social care delivery in a connected world, with over twenty years of global experience having worked with governments, Fortune 500 companies, and leading academic institutions. Rachel is a member of the Australia New Zealand leadership forum and was appointed to the newly established World Health Organization's Digital Health panel of experts and has provided keynote presentations on this subject at events around the world. Up until recently, Rachel was the Executive General Manager at the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), where she led the creation of Australia's national digital health strategy, the ‘Health Innovation Exchange’ concept, the My Health Record and many others. In this episode you will learn more about Codesain and what they do for organisations associated with digital health. You will learn why Rachel left the ADHA and what kind of transformation occurred to innovation and digital health in Australia during that time, and what healthcare looks like post COVID-19. Click here for full show notes and more information.

This is a pretty special episode for us here at Talking HealthTech. I don’t have with me here today a guest, it’s just me and you for the next little bit. That’s because I got news so noteworthy, I reckon it deserves it’s own episode. So buckle in, and check it out. Back in December 2018, so not even 2 years ago, this podcast started to fill a need in the Australian healthtech industry - to have more conversations, to promote collaboration for a more efficient healthcare system and a healthier nation. We’ve had a number of guests on the show, ranging from entrepreneurs and startups, leading clinicians, investors, software engineers and decision makers, and even members of the Australian health department. The positive response to the show has been beyond what I was expecting, and I’m super grateful for that. So now it’s time to kick it up a notch. Over the months we’ve had a lot of people ask us to help connect people in the industry, and that’s super rewarding, and we love that. Rather than doing those on a transaction by transaction basis, we’ve thought long and hard on how to do it in a scalable way. So we are super pumped to launch our new offering to the industry: Talking HealthTech is no longer just a podcast, it’s where healthtech happens. What is the big news? Talking HealthTech is now a membership community and online directory of all the technical providers making healthtech solutions, healthcare providers using healthtech solutions, and supporting services who are helping make sure those solutions are created, implemented and utilised in an optimal way. Think, like a “Glassdoor” or a “Trip Advisor”, or a “Compare the Market”, but for healthtech companies, and from the perspective of the Australian healthcare practitioner. We now have a brand new website, still at talkinghealthtech.com, which features the largest, most comprehensive, and engaging, online directory of healthtech providers, solutions and resources who are servicing Australian healthcare practitioners. Doesn’t the industry already have healthtech directories? Kind of. I guess we kind of already had healthtech podcasts when I started this show as well... But I looked for healthtech directories, and I just couldn’t find anything close to what I think we need in this industry today. Until now, we didn’t have anywhere for all the stakeholders in Australian HealthTech - so the software vendors, device manufacturers, biotech companies, telehealth providers, patient apps, consultants, IT Support companies ALL of these different players - to go to a place, other than those companies own websites, to get an informed view on how those companies stack up against their peers. Healthtech now has a home. A place to come back to. A point of reference. Generally, so many of our buying decisions on a day to day now factor in online reviews. We trust online reviews so much more than messaging than the company's websites. So the new Talking HealthTech Directory is better than any other online healthtech directory you’ve seen. It’s way more engaging. But it’s not just about reviews and comparing either - it’s also been created as a lead generation tool for the companies who list themselves on the directory. So, all of these doctors, physios, nurses, the end users of all these solutions; they are searching this directory looking for the right solution for their practice. The site has been optimised to make it super easy for those end users to contact their preferred vendor for more information, or “get matched” to the right provider if they don’t know who they are looking for. When they fill out a get matched form, the lead gets presented to those companies listed under that category. Our website is really nice to navigate too. Stuff is laid out in a logical way, it’s easy to ger around - hopefully you’ll want to stay on there for a bit, explore the content, and find out more about a particular company, or just peruse it and learn somet

David Korsunsky is the founder of US based firm Heads Up Health - a mobile app and web portal that integrates health information from a huge number of different sources. Check this episode out to learn more about Heads Up Health and an emerging new era of the patient / doctor relationship. Visit here for complete show notes and more information on the topics discussed in this episode.

Rohan Pardasani is the CEO and Founder of Avaana, an online marketplace and community in the well-being, fitness and allied space helping practitioners. Their mission is to be the anchor of a person's entire wellbeing journey, and grow practitioner businesses Avaana are helping practitioners to grow their business, market themselves effectively and fill those dreaded white gaps in their appointment calendars. They are also helping patients address the challenge of getting access to good wellbeing providers, particularly in the current climate of social distancing due to COVID-19. Check out this interview to learn more about Avaana, as well as the challenge patients face finding the right health and wellbeing providers. Rohan also talks about how they are helping Allied Health Practitioners navigate the complexities of NDIS claiming to help them find new revenue streams during these challenging times.

Kathy Hubble is the founder of a chronic pain management platform called Amelio Health, providing people in pain with instant access to evidence-based care, all through a web portal or an app on a smartphone. Kathy has a background in nursing, with 20 years in pain management. During this episode you will learn about what Amelio Health does, and how it’s working towards addressing the problem of chronic health in Australia. You’ll hear about the importance of engaging all the different stakeholders in the industry in order to deliver better patient outcomes, as well as their rapid growth trajectory fuelled even further by COVID-19.

Rick Rowan is a healthcare entrepreneur, innovator & facilitator. He is the CEO and Founder of NuroKor Bioelectronics, a UK based medical technology company specialising in non implantable electroceuticals and bioelectrical medicine.It’s basically like a tech version of a pain killer and an anti-inflammatory combined. Rick is internationally recognised thought leader and expert commentator in the health tech space, and his consumer lifestyle medical devices have been featured in Forbes list “The best healthcare gadgets and gizmos of 2018” Rick’s overarching goal is to use NuroKor’s innovative, evidence led, bioelectronic technology to create a positive impact on people’s quality of life on a global scale. In this interview you will learn who is Nurokor, as well as the science of bioelectronics and how it is helping chronic and acute patients without the need for medication.

Can you trust that smartphone app with your health information? Tim Blake is the Managing Director of Semantic Consulting, who are focused on leading digital change in healthcare. Tim helps organisations with digital health strategy, and is passionate about enabling engaged patients, activating carers, the use of mobile solutions in health, consumer health technology, precision medicine, consumer genomics, pharmacogenomics and many other components of digital health that are disrupting healthcare in positive and exciting ways. Tim has been on the Talking HealthTech Podcast once before - way back in episode 2, which you should totally go back and check out after this one. Semantic Consulting are the creators of the Digital Health Guide which is providing high quality information about mobile health apps, including what capabilities they have, what conditions they are for, what evidence exists to support their claims, and reviews and ratings from health providers, patients and more. In this episode explore the rising use of mobile apps in healthcare, as well as the current trends, safety, regulation and future of digital health. Listeners of this episode can also score a 10% discount on the Digital Health Guide by using the promo code Kk4ilNs9, valid until the end of June 2020.

Jack O'Brien is an early adopter, business geek, and a health professional. He is a Director of Clinic Mastery, who have built a thriving community and an invaluable library of resources around helping Australian health professionals thrive, and is also a host of the Grow Your Clinic Podcast, which you should definitely go and subscribe to now by the way. Jack inspires others to live a high performance life that is led by innovation and purpose-driven giving. He is Owner and Senior Physiotherapist at Terrace Physio Plus in Newcastle, and a devoted husband and father, as well as a lover of coffee, wine and whisky, In this episode you will learn about how Jack got started with Clinic Mastery, and what makes him tick. You will hear about what life is like in Allied Health, and some of the similarities and differences compared to GPs and Specialists. You will also learn about some of the popular and emerging tech available to Allied Health Practitioners today to help them run a successful clinic, as well as get some great tips on running your own business in the healthcare arena. Make sure you check out Clinic Mastery’s free clinic assessment tool mentioned on the show by following this link.

Dan Schulte is the Senior Vice President of Healthcare at HGS Inc, a global business processing outsourcing firm. Dan has decades of experience specialising in healthcare financial management, helping companies of all sizes find vulnerabilities, change processes, and realize immediate returns in bottom-line cash. In this episode we will explore the complexities of the US healthcare funding model and take a deep dive into revenue cycle management, as well as some of the technology that supports the process.

Medtronic is one of the world's largest medical technology companies, but it came from humble beginnings over 70 years ago. Their first life-changing therapy — a wearable, battery-powered cardiac pacemaker — was the foundation for many more Medtronic therapies that use their electrical stimulation expertise to improve the lives of millions of people. Over the years, Medtronic has developed more core technologies, including the first battery-powered pacemaker, a number of implantable mechanical devices, drug and biologic delivery devices, and powered and advanced energy surgical instruments. Today, their technologies are used to treat nearly 70 medical conditions. The concept of meaningful innovation is at the heart of everything that happens at Medtronic. In this episode, Peter Birch speaks with a few different guests to get the full picture on Medtronic, innovation and the medtech industry. You’ll learn about the history of Medtronic, how it maintains it's position as a pioneer of medtech, and how it fosters a culture of innovation internally. You’ll hear about their Eureka Live program and how the company engages with the medtech industry to maintain its reputation as a lead innovator. You will also hear from Dr Buzz Palmer, CEO of the MedTech Actuator, as he reflects on the challenges and opportunities facing the medtech industry today. First up is Andrew Whiltshire. He is Senior Director, Market Access, Public Affairs & Policy for both Australia and New Zealand at Medtronic. He is also sits on the Board of the Medical Technology Association of Australia. Andrew has been with Medtronic for over 24 years, and he is responsible for Health Economics, Market Access, Policy and Government and Stakeholder Relations at Medtronic, as well as coordinating Government Affairs for the APAC region. Pete spoke with Andrew first, to get to know a bit more about the background of Medtronic and how they bake innovation into everything they do. Next up Pete spoke with Prajni Sadananda. Prajni is the Business Development & Corporate Strategy Manager at Medtronic, where her key focus is on investment opportunities and partnerships that can help accelerate business growth. Prajni is also responsible for Medtronic’s Eureka Live program - where they are on the hunt for innovative companies that are keen to scale up and collaborate with Medtronic from across Australia and New Zealand. Check out Prajni’s interview to learn a bit more about the Eureka Live program. Lastly, Pete spoke with Dr Buzz Palmer - one of Australia’s leading and most visible voices in entrepreneurship and MedTech innovation. He’s the CEO of the MedTech Actuator, founding partner in Dialectica Group, serial entrepreneur and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Monash University. He’s had a lot of entrepreneurial success in medical technologies. He’ mainly focused on the translation of next-generation tech - which is all around creating and leading innovative solutions into new markets. He has a background in orthopaedic regenerative medicine and microsurgery, So he is well positioned to strategically drive innovative medical technology solutions that provide a significant impact on society. Listen to Buzz to learn more about the MedTech space more broadly, and understand the opportunities and challenges that face companies playing in that arena today.

Yianni Serparnos is a health-tech innovator, digital health advocate, podcaster, and founding CEO of Coreplus, an Australian digital health practice management software for Allied Health providers, clinics and private practices. He is inspired and motivated to modernise healthcare and achieve a vision of a world of integrated digital health empowerment for all people. Coreplus's Mission is to connect, help and grow Allied Health providers, with the right tools and empowerment so that the delivery of modern healthcare services can better fit into the lives, schedules, goals and aspirations of healthcare consumers whilst supporting the clinicians and practitioners to practice in a happier way. Check out this episode to learn about the background of Coreplus, and a bit of a pulse check on technology in Allied Health. Also in this discussion, Yianni talks about his broader connection with the healthtech industry with Healthtech X, exploring the evolution of digital health, and the future for our evolving ecosystem.

Dr Marcus Tan is the Founder, CEO and Medical Director of HealthEngine, one of Australia’s largest online healthcare marketplaces, helping millions of patients connect with thousands of healthcare providers nationally. His vision for HealthEngine is to be a global leading platform that revolutionises the access and experience of healthcare for patients and providers. Marcus is a University of Western Australia medical graduate with an executive MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He is an experienced GP, healthcare executive and company director with over 20 years of clinical and commercial experience. His diverse career spans the health, technology, investment and philanthropic sectors. In this episode Marcus chats with Pete about the history and evolution of Health Engine, their response to COVID-19 and telehealth. Marcus also shares some wisdom for founders as they scale their digital health startup and look to raise capital.

Dr Ginni Mansberg is no stranger to Australian television and other media - she is a Sydney GP, and has been on shows like Embarrassing Bodies Down Under on Channel 9, Sunrise & the Morning Show on Channel 7, Medicine or Myth on SBS, Things You Can't Talk About on TV on Audible, as well as featuring in a bunch of magazines, radio shows and podcasts. In addition to this and a heap of other responsibilities, Dr Ginni is also a successful businesswoman, with her own cosmeceutical and beauty-related business, ESK - Evidence Skin Care. Pete and Dr Ginni spoke via livestream video with a live audience, and the audio recording was converted into an episode of the Talking HealthTech Podcast. Attendees engaged in chat, asked questions, participated in polls, and generally shaped the conversation. In this episode Pete and Ginni talk all about entrepreneurship - from idea to execution. Ginni talks about her background, the impact of COVID-19 on General Practitioners, and the story of her own business. Dr Ginni provides her insights on starting your own business, running your own company while balancing family and kids, as well as how and when to spin up a side hustle, plus much much more.

Matt Bardsley is the CEO of MedicalDirector, one of Australia’s leading practice management systems for healthcare practitioners. In the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic and the impact it has had on our global healthcare system, technology providers have been searching for ways to add more value to their existing products, create new offerings and enable practitioners to deliver patient care safely and effectively. One of those technology providers in Australia is MedicalDirector. Their fearless leader Matt Bardsley has been on the Talking HealthTech Podcast once before, and I recommend you also go and check out episode 15 back in August 2019 once you’ve listened to this one. Click here to check that one out. Fast forward to today, Matt and the team have a lot of different things going on at MedicalDirector at the moment, but he made time to talk through how they’ve responded to the crisis at hand. Check this one out to learn how MedicalDirector is supporting clinics during COVID-19, the uptake of telemedicine, the broader technology and infrastructure requirements of performing healthcare at the moment, and the broader observation about how humanism is outpacing darwinism in these unprecedented times.

Dr Cortina McCurry is the CEO and Co-Founder of Caia, a video and text consultation platform which securely connects women and families with vetted women’s health practitioners, treatments, and products to make it easy to navigate each stage of life. Cortina has a PhD in neuroscience from MIT, and more than 15years experience across healthcare, technology, and operations. Cortina was a Partner at Boston Consulting Group, and traded it all in for the best job of all - founder of a healthtech start up in Australia. Check out this episode to learn all about Caia and how they are addressing an unmet need in women's health, the role businesses can play in supporting the health and wellness of their employees during the transition to parenthood, why investing in women and families is good for business, and moving the needle on gender equality and how it is more than just flexible work and parental leave. Pete and Cortina also discuss the real challenges of being a Co-Founder and new parent, and strategies on how to win in both parts of life.

It feels like it was only a few weeks ago that we were praying for Telehealth to be implemented in GP clinics over the coming years. We pictured a gradual roll out, drip fed slowly by types of service, or locations. It was the type of thing that could only be implemented in baby steps. There was simply no other way to disrupt the GP workflow to bring Telehealth front of mind. Then the day before recording this episode, the baby just not only took some steps, it did a triple backwards summersault while running a marathon in under 2 hours - as in, it was announced that we now have universal Telehealth available in Australia. As Greg Hunt our health minister said - it is a decades worth of work in a matter of days. It seems pretty apt that the only way to implement a disruptive solution like Telehealth was to have a disruptive problem like COVID-19. Many of the tools that GPs need to enable all of this, are created by healthtech providers. It goes beyond the obvious things though, which is just giving a doctor a phone or zoom log in and say go nuts, there is a fair bit more infrastructure that goes around making the COVID-19 screening process and tele-consult actually work. Healthtech providers around Australia have been working day and night to fasttrack new features and modify their existing products due to COVID-19. And the leaders of 4 of those well known companies are here on this live panel discussion today. Tess Van der Rijt - CEO of Medinet Dr Ben Hurst - CEO and CoFounder of HotDoc Pete Williams - CEO and CoFounder of Medipass Rami Weiss - CoFounder of Healthshare What’s really cool as well, is all of these panelists have previously appeared on the Talking HealthTech podcast - so they will join this elite club that I just made up for people who have appeared not just once, but twice, on the show. This episode was recorded during a livestream video panel interview, where attendees engaged with the panelists, asked questions, completed polls and networked amongst their peers. It was super cool to have the direction of the show be heavily influenced by where the attendees wanted to take it. In this episode, hear from the leaders of some of Australia’s biggest healthtech companies on how they are supporting GPS and clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn about the practicalities of implementing Telehealth in a clinic, the nuances of the new billing rules announced by the government and recommendations for some of the best tools to run a productive practice during social distancing restrictions.

Joel Friedleander is the founder of Cliniko, which is practice management software used by more than 30,000 people in over 70 countries. Joel has a software development background, and started Cliniko with his wife who is an osteopath back in 2010. As many organisations around the world grapple with the concepts of adapting to remote work due to social distancing, Cliniko has been doing it for over 10 years - with an entirely remote team spanned across the globe. This is no ordinary podcast episode, this was the first Talking HealthTech Livestream Webinar recorded to an audience who not only listened to what Joel had to say, but also engaged with polls, chat, and even a few came ‘on stage’ and spoke with Joel directly about some important topics. In this episode you will learn about the history of Cliniko, the company culture, and how they break some of the corporate norms you might see in other organisations. Pete and Joel also delve into the challenges of social isolation due to COVID-19, and how Cliniko has adapted to the environment. Joel gives some useful tips for working from home, teleconsulting and other productivity hacks to be your best during these challenging times.

In this episode are interviews with some of the biggest names in Australian health policy influence and clinical leadership. Earlier this month, at Baker Mackenzie in Melbourne, Australia, the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) hosted its March Forum for members. If you didn’t know, the members of MSIA are providers of technology to the healthcare industry in Australia. When the MSIA puts on an event, they get the very best of the best in key opinion leaders and experts into the room to provide some really meaningful and actionable insights foe members. They also do a bunch more outside of events like essentially being the voice for every software vendor to raise important issues right up through government to influence policy decisions, which ultimately link back to how technology is adopted in the healthcare ecosystem here in Australia. And in this current climate of COVID-19, which is essentially a rapidly evolving crisis situation that is relying heavily on health technology to address a global catastrophe, the need has never been more obvious to have a single voice, a consistent message and some clear direction. So, at this MSIA Forum earlier in the month, much like last time, Pete was able to catch a lot of the presenters after they spoke for a few minutes debrief - essentially this episode of the Talking HealthTech podcast is the TLDR of the MSIA March Forum. If you want to check out the slides from these presenters and see the full program of who presented, get in touch with the MSIA and learn about becoming a member, as these presentations are filled with amazing insights that aren’t for public release. It’s simply a non-negotiable in our opinion for all healthtech vendors in Australia to be a member of the MSIA. Interviews in this episode include: George Tambassis, National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. He has been a community pharmacist for over 25 years and is a partner in 5 community pharmacies in and around the city of Melbourne. As president of the guild, he is essentially the voice of the 5,700 pharmacists in Australia George has a keen interest in enabling community pharmacies in Australia to work to their full scope of practice to maximise benefits for patients and the health system At the MSIA Forum in Melbourne, George participated on a health policy panel session called “Sharing the health burden and pushing the boundaries, Health leaders stake their claims”. It was fascinating to watch George debate some important topics with the President of the AMA - who essentially represented every doctor in the country, to see what they definitely agreed on, kind of agreed on, and definitely did not agree on. In a chat with me after the panel, George shared some of his key takeaways from the session. Dr Tony Bartone, President of the Australian Medical Association, Tony shared his thoughts on what needs to change in healthcare in light of bushfires and corona virus, and what all parts of the ecosystem should be focusing on to enable better patient care and a more sustainable healthcare system Toby Hall, Group CEO of St Vincent’s Health Australia. Toby presented to the forum a session called “A brave new idea for health funding and opportunities for industry” Contrary to what you think the leader of one of Australia’s largest provider of hospitals would say, Toby talks about how the future is not delivered in acute hospital, and how we should stop investing in hospital beds. Listen in more to his debrief to learn more about his approach. Professor Trish Williams, Cisco Chair, and Professor of Digital Health Systems at Flinders University. Trish knows health technology - she essentially launched the first ever practice management system for general practitioners in Australia. Trish spoke at the forum about user experience design, and the important aspects of designing good software, especially when it comes to the healthcare arena. Trish gave some insights f

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, is The Medical Futurist, looking at how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. He is a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, and an Amazon Top 100 author. He is one of the top voices globally on digital health technology and the future of healthcare. Bertalan has delivered hundreds and hundreds of keynotes for governments and organizations including Harvard, Stanford, Yale Universities and NASA. He’s been featured by dozens of top publications, including CNN, the World Health Organization, National Geographic, Forbes, TIME magazine, BBC, and the New York Times. And now of course, Talking HealthTech His website The Medical Futurist has had more than 5 million readers, and he is one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Healthcare. He is a member of Mensa International and has been selected by the Huffington Post as one of the 30 biotech thinkers with the biggest global impact. Tune in to hear all about Bertalan’s perspective on Artificial Intelligence in healthcare, what to do with all this patient data, as well as his perspective on the European and global healthtech scene. Bertalan also shares some very handy tips for any Doctors currently going through medical school about how to prepare for the future of medicine.

For those familiar with the format of theTalking HealthTech Podcast, you would know that normally its a 1:1 conversation between me and someone else in the healthtech scene. Recently we upped our game, and thanks to the support of Hub Australia, we hosted our first ever Talking HealthTech live panel event. This was an opportunity for an audience of around 50-60 people to hear first hand from a panel of 4 healthtech leaders, moderated by Peter Birch, talking about all the important topics in the world of digital health. This panel discussion was hugely insightful, and highlighted the massive dividends that pay off when companies embrace collaboration to solve big problems - a tool particularly helpful to Aussie healthtech firms who are looking to solve some of the countries biggest challenges using modern and emerging technologies. Enjoy the following panel discussion featuring: Manuri Gunawardena - Founder and CEO, HealthMatch Melissa Webster - Founder and CEO, Sleepfit Silvia Pfeiffer - Founder and CEO, Coviu Charles Lynam - Commercial Director, Hosportal

Dr James Somauroo is Co-Founder at HS. Ventures, a UK-based accelerator and VC that builds, scales and invests in the best healthtech startups. James hosts the HS. Health-Tech Podcast, featuring 2 episodes a week with listeners in over 80 countries, interviewing inspiring entrepreneurs in this space. He is also is a contributor to Forbes in the UK. He is an anaesthetics and ICU doctor by training, and held roles in leadership at the NHS, Health Education England and the British Medical Journal and he previously directed an accelerator that provided startups with market access to the NHS. He also has degrees in biomedical sciences and education, and a guest lecturer on healthtech innovation and entrepreneurship at University College London. In this episode, James talks all about HS. Ventures and why it exists. He explains what an accelerator and navigator does, and their importance in the health ecosystem. Listen in for valuable insights from James about what to do and what not to do when you’re trying to raise money as a healthtech start up. (This guy has seen many pitch decks in his time!) Learn about the healthtech space in the UK, and whether or not it’s worth having a go at cracking the NHS if you’re from Australia or anywhere else in the world. He also talks about how his own healthtech podcast came about, and some of the amazing guests he has had in his time, including Talking HealthTech’s very own Peter Birch later this week! Swapcast time!

Chris Smeed is the CEO and Founder of Cubiko, a business report and analyst tool made especially for general practices, and they are making a bit of noise here in Australia. Chris has extensive experience in healthcare, cloud based solutions and accounting services. He holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Masters of Professional Accounting, and he’s also an accredited BAS agent and certified Xero partner, so he has a lot of first hand experience about every facet of running a clinic - from balancing the books of a medical practice on a day to day, right up to reporting on performance to management and owners. In this episode, learn all about Cubiko how it came together, and the problems it solves for GP practices around Australia, big and small. Chris speaks about the importance of integrations and API feeds to breakdown silos in healthcare performance measurement, and their ethos towards benchmarking nd keeping clinic data secure.

Karen Borg is the CEO of Healthdirect Australia, working with government partners to deliver innovative and trusted health information and services to all Australians so they can connect to the right care at the right time, wherever and whenever they need it. In this episode, Pete and Karen talk about the different offerings of Healthdirect, the important role they play in supporting the government find new innovative healthcare technology solutions. They also talk about the readiness for telehealth in Australia, where we stand compared to other parts of the world, and the carrots and sticks required to facilitate positive change to address complex health challenges.

Rami Weiss is the CEO of Healthshare. Their mission is to improve patient health outcomes using digital solutions. Over the past few years Healthshare has developed a raft of different solutions for Doctors and Patients to ultimately serve up better health information, which leads to happier healthier people. In this episode, Pete & Rami talk about the 10 year history of the company, their raft of products available for Doctors and Patients, and how they manage to market and grow their suite of different offerings to both B2B and B2C. They also dive into the importance of accessible health information to help patients and doctors make more informed decisions for better patient outcomes, and reflect on how the start up landscape in Australia has changed over the past 10 years.

Sanji Kanagalingam is the Executive Director of Curve Tomorrow, who are at the intersection of healthcare, commercialisation and digital product development. Curve works with organisations, clinicians and medical researchers to bring life changing and award-winning health technology to life, from concept through to care. In this episode of The Talking HealthTech Podcast, Pete and Sanji talk about app development for healthcare, the successes and learning opportunities they’ve had to work out what works and what doesn’t, putting together a good business model around innovation and the importance of using design thinking to solve difficult problems in software development for healthcare. Sanji also speaks about their ambitious target to impact the lives of one billion people.

Dr Michelle Perugini is the co-founder and CEO of Presagen, who recently launched their first product Life Whisperer; which uses AI to better identify healthy embryos for IVF, and to ultimately improve outcomes for couples wanting to have children. In this episode recorded live at Startcon. Pete and Michelle talk about how Presagen is changing the way medical data from around the world is connected with artificial intelligence through their Open AI Projects, and how this approach helps them build more diverse datasets and maintain high levels of data privacy for their intelligent health solutions. Michelle also reflects on how scaling in healthtech differs to other industries, as well as the hype vs reality of AI in healthcare.

Peter Birch speaks with Pete Williams, the co-founder of Medipass, a digital healthcare claiming and payments platform for providers and insurers. Before starting Medipass in 2016, Pete co-founded Localz, a VC backed startup that powers last mile delivery experiences for major retailers and service companies. Prior to joining the startup world, Pete led consumer and high-value payments technology - including HICAPS - at National Australia Bank. He was also employed by KPMG where he worked on financial service and payment projects around the world In this episode, Pete and Pete chat about the complexities of healthcare payments in Australia, how we stack up to other parts of the world, the importance of partnerships with practice management systems and payors for HealthTech vendors, and many more.

Bringing in 2020 with a bang, this is a mammoth show to see in the new year! Back in November at the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) 2019 Annual Summit and AGM in Sydney Australia, Talking HealthTech recorded interviews with different speakers throughout the day. This episode features 5 of these conversations covering a broad spectrum of issues that are pertinent to Australia’s health technology scene today. The theme for the summit was “Limitless - Health Software Transforming Australia’s Healthcare”. The event was attended by over 100 members of the MSIA, and had guests speakers from all over the country, as well as a special international guest. This episode features interviews with: Iman Ghodosi, Vice President of Asia Pacific at Zuora Igor Zvezdakoski, Chief Product Officer at Message Media Group Dr Ruth Webster, Global Head of Medicine at the George Health Technologies Dr Harry Nespolon, President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Steven Posnack, Deputy National Coordinator for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, at the US Department of Health and Human Services. Robert Best, President of the MSIA and CEO of MIMS AU&NZ.

David Dahm is a driven, motivated and dedicated individual with a raft of qualifications and experience, and an amazing life story. He is currently the CEO and Founder of Health and Life, the CEO of One Moment Foundation and is actively involved in industry associations across the Medical and Accounting professions. David is passionate about creating a sustainable and socially responsible healthcare system by promoting health and financial literacy in the community. Most recently David is on a journey to establish the IHSEB - the International Health Standards & Ethics Board - in an effort to implement standards of healthcare delivery across the globe. Listen in to this episode of Talking HealthTech to hear more about the IHSEB, as well as David's story, what Doctors can learn from Accountants, and all about the concept of patient advocacy.

Dr Femida Gwadry-Sridhar is the Founder and CEO of PulseInfoFrame; a company that builds collaborative communities to enable the best value healthcare and cures for cancer and rare diseases. As founder and CEO of PulseInfoframe, Femida has an extensive background as a pharmacist, epidemiologist and methodologist with over 25 years of experience in clinical trials, disease registries, knowledge translation, health analytics and clinical disease outcomes. Femida’s brain child is a cloud-based healthcare data insights solution called Healthie which is a state of the art analytics and visualisation platform built on the backbone of a dynamic registry. Healthie enables the integration of clinical, imaging and histopathology data as well as patient reported outcomes and natural histories.  Over her 25 year career, Femida has obtained more than 10 million dollars in funding for research, has published in top tier journals, and worked along-side the best in the world of medicine and business. During this conversation, Femida chats with Pete about patient reported outcome measures, patient reported experience measures (PROMS and PREMS), clinical trials, and the use of health data.

Dr Louise Schaper is an expert in health informatics, and is passionate about transforming the health sector by leveraging technology to provide sustainable and better health for everyone. Louise is the CEO of HISA: Australia’s digital health community. In this role she brings together world-class clinicians, researchers, innovators and organisations from across biomedical, health and technology who are committed to the improvement of health outcomes enabled through innovative uses of technology and information. In this episode Louise talks to Pete about HISA and it’s role in the health community as well as the evolution of Digital Health. Louise also delves into the importance of events to bring together the healthtech community, and the big themes in Health IT today. Overview [02:00] The background of HISA: Back in 1992 HISA was founded when computer technology adoption generally was low. They became Australia digital health community. Bringing the tribe of digital health ecosystem together [03:40] HISA is putting out a paper about where they see digital health. Sneak peak: before we spoke about health it, ehealth, digital health is interchangeable Digital Health is different to the application of IT in healthcare. In 2019 they are leading that conversation - health in the digital age. How does health transform to the fact world is digital these days. Hard to implement. [05:50] The Australian healthcare system isn’t screwed, we deliver high quality healthcare to many people, but generally it needs to be fixed. Not broken but could be better. Not a fault of clinicians, technology doesn’t give them the right tools to do their job in the more effective way possible. Work to do to change that situation [06:50] In America, $4.2 billion invested in digital health in first half of 2019. A lot of money invested globally, especially in Silicon Valley. Since 2011, in US, $29.4 billion invested in digital health. [08:00] Investing in healthcare is riskier investment, it’s not like other industries. In healthcare, focus needs to be on the workforce. No matter how much you invest and how great the tech is, the workforce needs to understand why we need to change in healthcare. Need to change the business models of healthcare. Need to be critical on how we look at technology while we embrace it. This is not taught in uni for doctors. Can’t just put devices infant of clinicians and expect them to embrace it. Investing in upskilling workforce in digital health is growing area. Seeing increasing momentum in dollars spent on this area. [11:15] HISA is Independent but partners with many organisations including ADHA Australian Digital Health Agency. Run events, forums, connect people who feel they are alone in digital health world. Also working with nurses and midwives to build a digital health capability framweeworl for nurses, and ADHA is sponsoring that. Will be launched next year - worlds digital health nuses and midwives coming to Brisbane next year, launching there. Individual nurses and midwives, employers and educators to see what does a nurse need to know about digital health to be the best nurse they can be. Upskill workforce, educators can plan curriculum, and nurses and midwives look to improve their career. Workarounds are inevitable if training and onboarding in [16:00] When we nail it, we can just go back to calling it health. It’s not health IT, healthtech. E-commerce just became commerce and became the norm / they became redundant. Eventually technology will be the norm and how we do things. [18:00] The way we manage healthcare information hasn’t really changed in couple hundreds of years. Since Florence nightingale’s time. She complained about the lack of information she could use for comparative purposes to help patients. Things move slowly. We will get to a point where Florence wanted where clinicians have real time info, live dashboards, helpful info to make best decisions

Matiu Bush is both a clinician and a designer who founded One Good Street, a social impact platform to encourage neighbour initiated care for older residents at risk of social isolation and loneliness. Matiu is the Deputy Director of the Health Transformation Lab at RMIT, designing cultures of innovation and creativity in healthcare. He has a Master's degree in Public Health and broad clinical experience as an emergency, oncology and intensive care nurse and he is also a sexual health Nurse Practitioner. He’s a board member of Better Care Victoria and the Emerging Leaders Clinical Advisory Committee. He is a super active member of HISA, a Rotarian, and a mentor for undergraduates and post graduate science students. Overview [01:30] Neighbour initiated care lifts the social capital in neighbourhoods, it improves house prices and creates an alternative value economy. The One Good Street is a platform to enable and scale those initiatives. [05:00] Salutogenic Design can be used to avoid building tech that is beautifully useless. It is about design that focuses on reducing stress levels and promoting wellbeing. Opposing the pathologising of humanity when you walk into hospital. [07:30] Guerilla information provisioning uses nudge theory to teach people about their health condition in the peripheries. [08:30] Citizen driven science looks at how to get citizens to help solve complex problems [10:15] The RMIT Health Transformation Lab uses “The Treatment” as their design mythology, which involves ‘deep hanging out’, or anthropology (the study of humans). Just shutting up and watching. [10:30] They also use the Causatory reasoning method, which calls for ‘descending into the particular’ and ignoring generalisations. [11:30] The saluto-technical approach marries salutogenic design principles with new technology, in an effort to stop the fetishisation of technology in healthcare. Otherwise we are so close to data but so far from the truth. There is a need to provoke the sector to do better so we don’t design technology that is beautifully useless. [15:30] Technology needs to be designed while keeping the readiness of the health ecosystem in mind. [17:50] The Cisco Digital Maturity Index helps you determine the level of work that will be required to implement new technology in a health organisation, depending on its appetite and ability to adopt technology. [22:21] Matiu had a falling out with Mother Teresa in Tijuana… [24:00] Sanctuary trauma is what happens when you go into healthcare and they are meant to look after you and they don’t. This can be avoided by involving the third sector of healthcare - those groups like schools, volunteers, rotary, Australia Post etc that have a legitimate place at the table with clinicians. [25:00] Doing tech better in health will enable relational health - where doctors will ask more about your relationships to see a better ‘return on investment’ on your treatment, to help you stay healthier for longer. Links Talking HealthTech Podcast Talking HealthTech Community One Good Street One Good Street Facebook Community Health Transformation Lab Rotary Transpire’s Vodafone Dreamlab Cisco Digital Maturity Scaling Transcript [00:00:00] Pete: [00:00:00] Welcome to Talking HealthTech. My name is Peter Birch, and this is a podcast of conversations with doctors, developers, and decision makers that are playing in the Australian HealthTech scene today. Here with me today's is Matiu Bush. Matiu is both a clinician and a designer who founded One Good Street, a social impact platform to encourage neighbour initiated care for older residents at risk of social isolation and loneliness. He's the Deputy Director for the health transformation lab at RMIT, designing cultures of innovation and creativity in healthcare. He has a master's degree in public health and broad clinical experience as an emergency oncology and intensive care nurse, and he's also a sexual health nurse practitione

Julien de Salaberry is the Founder and CEO of Galen Growth Asia, whose mission is to build a sustainable and vibrant HealthTech ecosystem across Asia by scaling digital health innovation through industry partnerships. He has over 15 years of experience in healthcare with leading brands including Eli Lilly, Boston Scientific, Baxter, GSK, Merck&Co., and he has a deep understanding of healthcare in both developed and emerging markets. In 2012, he founded The Propell Group (TPG), a boutique venture investor firm, based in Singapore, which focuses on HealthTech startups and growth companies. Since 2012, TPG has invested in 23 companies including 4 successful exits. In this episode of the Talking HealthTech podcast, Pete and Julien talk about the key trends in Asia Pacific HealthTech, and some of the exciting technologies coming out of Asia solving big health problems. Julien also deep dives into some of the more macro issues impacting healthtech in Asia at the moment such as the US/China trade war, and the United Nations Sustainable Health Goals for 2030.

Frank & Lorraine Pyefinch of Best Practice Software are two iconic and down to earth players in the Australian Practice Management System game. Dr Frank Pyefinch is not only founder of Best Practice, but also originally the founder of Medical Director - the number 1 and 2 practice management systems for Australian GPs today, and have been for many years. As CEO of Best Practice, Frank brings with him a long and proud history working as a busy GP, and Lorraine as a registered nurse - so together they understand first hand the challenges and needs of the medical community when it comes to software and technology. Overview [02:07] Genie was first created because Frank doesn’t like Mac [02:45] The first PMS in Australia (Medical Director) was created by Frank because the poisons act changed in Australia allowing typed scripts, which included computer generated ones. [06:38] The break-even point for MD back in the early 90s was 200 sites. This seemed an ambitious goal at the time. Today Best Practice Software has over 4500 sites. [06:49] The name “Medical Director” came from Lorraine looking through Job Classifieds in Aus Doc magazine, and liking the attributes of a ‘Medical Director’. [07:58] The original Medical Director logo was created by Lorraine with the kids etch-a-sketch in the back of the family car [08:30] The first copy of Medical Director was sold on it’s launch at the AMA’s annual computer day conference in 1992. [09:00] In 1994/95 advertisements started to be inserted into the Medical Director software, which subsidised the program heavily. [09:30] In 1999 Medical Director was sold to Health Communication Network (HCN). Frank and Lorraine went to HCN with the business. [10:30] Frank and Lorraine left HCN in 2003 as they were dissatisfied with the increasingly intrusive advertising being placed in MD to raise revenue. They sat out their exclusion period in their contract, and during that time Frank went back to being a GP in Bundaberg while writing Best Practice. [12:00] There were no standards for medical software at that time. If there were, it’s likely the product would never have been built. [14:00] Frank and Lorraine have seen Medical Software evolve from a text mode dos interface, to a graphical user interface, to the introduction of tables and touch screens. Now seeing a bigger emphasis on communication, and also now a shift to the cloud, which is driving the development of their Titanium product to be released next year. [15:07] Frank still does some programming in Best Practice even today, because he enjoys it. [17:34] Some of the government brain waves aren’t clearly thought out, such as the PHN’s collecting data for the QI Pip. [18:55] The biggest cause of support issues for Best Practice are Medicare claims not reconciling due to the archaic nature of the Medicare adapter. BP is hoping Medicare shift to web services before BP release Titanium so they don’t need to integrate with legacy technology in the cloud. [21:15] During the roll out of the then PCHR, now My Health Record, during the Royal Review, Frank and Lorraine provided the suggestion that Doctors should be remunerated for uploading summaries to My Health Record as it was additional admin work they were not being paid for. [26:51] The BP Partner Program has been launched in order to give partners more controlled access to the BP database so they don’t need to hack their way in, and only get access to what they need - protecting the partner, the patient, the practice and BP. [31:10] Pathology requests in PMS systems is standardised as SNP and QML, two competitors came together in the early 90’s came to the PMS providers and standardised the format of the forms, which set a format for future pathology vendors. This didn’t happen with radiology which is all over the place [33:30] The ADHA is making strides towards their goal of interoperability, for example with secure messaging, although is Secure Messaging the best wa

How many places are your healthcare information kept? Wouldn't it be great if you could view it all in one spot? Healthtech start up Wanngi is taking on the bold journey to attempt to do just that. Maree Beare is the Founder of a HealthTech startup called Wanngi, an online health wallet that is implementing a social movement to empower people with their own health information. Maree was recently recognised in the top 50 list of Women leading Startups that are disrupting Healthtech In this episode hear more about Wanngi and what they are trying to achieve, the benefits of consumer generated data in healthcare, and the challenges of implementing and integrating a start-up healthtech in Australia.

Dr Adam Meredith is the CEO, Founder and Inventor of Migraine Stopper, a device that turns off migraines. Adam is a Chiropractor by trade, with his own group of practices known as the Spine and Health, a Posture Based Chiropractic Centre. In this interview, learn how migraines come about, some different treatment methods and the theory behind the Migraine Stopper device.

If you work in the healthcare industry you have a huge responsibility when it comes to managing sensitive patient information, whether you’re a big software vendor or a single physiotherapist, everyone needs to follow the same rules, and there are some pretty serious consequences for not doing it properly. Do you know what your obligations are and if you’re doing a good job? Check this episode out to find out! Who is Anna Johnston Anna Johnston is one of Australia’s most respected experts in privacy law and practice. She has qualifications in law, public policy and management, and 26 years’ experience in legal, policy and research roles. Anna has a breadth of perspectives and a wealth of experience to dealing with privacy and data governance issues. She is the former Deputy Privacy Commissioner for NSW, so she knows the regulator’s perspective and since 2004 is the Director for consulting firm “Salinger Privacy”. Anna has been called upon to provide expert testimony before various Parliamentary inquiries and the Productivity Commission, spoken at numerous conferences, and is regularly asked to comment on privacy issues in the media. Anna holds a first class honours degree in Law, a Masters of Public Policy with honours, a Graduate Certificate in Management, a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, and a Bachelor of Arts, plus a number of other relevant and well regarded certificates and industry associations. In this Episode you’ll learn 2:08 - About Salinger Privacy 4:55 - Privacy Concerns in Data (with a focus on health tech) 8:15 - All about, privacy reviews, data flows, data governance, and privacy design 14:28 -AI - How does it fit ethically, legally and is policy keeping up with innovation 16:40 - AI - GDPR, challenges for AI with diagnostic decisions 20:10 - AI - Transparency, Accountability and Consent 26:00 - Legal Obligations with Data Privacy Key TakeAways When it comes to privacy law in Australia, the same laws and consequences apply to everyone dealing with healthcare information - whether they are a big institution of a single doctor. While Data Privacy breaches do happen they are often the result of lack of education and or the best intentions in mind, not so much because of malicious intent Often AI is trained on data that was collected not for the intention of training the machine, so the concept of informed consent is a tricky one The simple “tick this box to agree” actually isn’t enough and more emphasis needs to be put on clearly communicating clearly with the person who’s data is being collected The expectations of patients data privacy holds the health and medical industries to the highest levels of scrutiny meaning that breaches are to be reported to the Price Commissioners office and the patients whose privacy has been breached Links Anna Johnston Twitter - @SalingerPrivacy Anna Johnston LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-johnston-ba188410a/ Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme - https://www.oaic.gov.au/ndb GDPR - https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/guidance-and-advice/australian-entities-and-the-eu-general-data-protection-regulation/ MSIA - https://msia.com.au/ Salinger Privacy - https://www.salingerprivacy.com.au/ My Health Record (Formerly PCEHR) - https://www.myhealthrecord.gov.au/ NDIS - https://www.ndis.gov.au/ National Health and Medical Research Council - https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/ Transcript [00:00:00] Pete: With me today is Anna Johnson. Anna is one of Australia's most respected experts in Privacy Law and practice. She has qualifications in law, public policy and management and 26 years experience in legal policy and research roles. Anna has a breadth of perspectives and a wealth of experience in dealing with privacy and data governance issues. She's the former deputy privacy commissioner for New South Wales.So she really knows regulatory perspective well, and since 2004 is the director for consulting firm Salinger Privacy Anna holds a first-class honours

James Scollay is CEO of clinical and practice management software vendor Genie Solutions. He’s the former General Manager of MYOB, and was originally the executive chair of Genie before moving into the full time CEO gig early last year. Genie has earned tremendous respect and trust from its customer base, with over 20 years in market as a software solution for Doctors. More recently James has been focused on bringing the company into a new era of industry collaboration and technological advancements, enabling practices around Australia deliver a better patient experience and drive real practice efficiency. In this episode James and Pete chat about the new Gentu cloud platform and it’s rapid growth (400% in the last quarter!) and how more practices are adopting Cloud over Desktop solutions. ☁️ They also talk about Private Equity funding and how it’s helped take the company from a family run business to a business with double the staff with much more focus on Development and User Experience. 📈 Listen in to also learn about Genie’s massive investment on "collaboration" using the FHIR standards and their partnership with Movember. 🤝 Transcript [00:00:48] James how you doing [00:00:49] James: doing great. Thanks for having me along. [00:00:50] Pete: Thanks for coming in [00:00:52] James: beautiful day in Sydney to be stuck inside the studio, [00:00:53] Pete: How Good is it, yeah yeah. [00:00:55] Pete: but I guess like with podcasts it could be anywhere but and anyone could be listening and it's [00:01:00] raining outside speaking of raining you were you were so your Genies head office is in Brisbane you're in Sydney a lot, but you're also a [00:01:11] originally a New Zealander is that [00:01:15] James: that's right. [00:01:14] Pete: Yeah. Okay. Okay. [00:01:15] James: Proud kiwi still support the All Blacks. [00:01:17] Pete: Okay, Yeah. [00:01:18] James:15 years here. [00:01:19] Pete: I didn't know that. Okay. Well might be a short. No. No, - no no awesome awesome. That's good. So Genie lots to talk about let's let's let's get stuck into it for those that might not be in the know tell us a bit more about Genie and what you guys do. [00:01:34] James: So we’re the market leader for Practice Management systems for Specialists and we include by the way GP’s is as a specialty there. So we've got more than 4,000 practices using Genie to run their practice and that means they're using it to do all their practice management in terms of appointment booking, billing and also managing the clinical workflows. [00:01:57] So we think that's around 65% of all private practices in Australia that are using Genie. [00:02:02] Pete: Yeah, Wow. Okay first so then because I was always looking around. I think you had over. 20,000 licenses or something back in 2018. What's the count now? who have you got and who are the customers and how many are there and what… [00:02:15] James: yeah. [00:02:15] So look, we've got the top 10 Specialties make up about 50% of our client base. Okay, we celebrated our 4,000th practice in October last year, which was a endocrinologist on the on the Sunshine Coast. [00:02:29] Pete: Oh right? and you know that, you know the 4,000th. [00:02:30] James: Yeah, we’ve headed down to her office. She took our, our new cloud Gentu product and so we really celebrated that and look no such sounds have been growing pretty rapidly since then who are our customers? [00:02:41] They're still across Fifty something different different Specialties. They are have been we've been in business for 20 years so most them are on the desktop, but more recently more of our new practices are actually taking cloud. In the last quarter we've seen a 400 percent growth in in Cloud sales compared [00:03:00] to the same quarter last year. [00:03:01] And for the first time we're seeing more new practices take our Gentu Cloud solution than desktop. [00:03:07] Pete: Yeah. Okay [00:03:07] James: Which is really exciting. [00:03:08] Pet

Marcus Wilson is CEO of Surgical Partners, a solution that is helping practices around Australia integrate their accounting information with their practice management system. He is a former healthcare analyst for Macquarie Group, and an Engineer by training. Marcus is passionate about implementing technology-based solutions for the complex challenges facing healthcare practices. In this chat with Pete, they cover the inefficiencies of back office processes in health, the exciting world of healthcare-FinTech, and the impact on the Australian GP of the emergence of new payment models onto the scene like AfterPay, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Ami Assigal is the Director of Practice Partners, a group of Healthcare Business Consultants helping clinics achieve their goals of profitability and growth. Ami has a wealth of experience in all aspects of running a medical centre. She an MBA specialising in finance, and a Diploma in Practice Management, so she knows her stuff when it comes to running a successful medical practice. Ami loins Pete in the studio to talk about the concept of Virtual Practice Management, and how it's revolutionising the day to day of busy GPs around the world. She also touches on the technology and tools that GPs need to run a successful and profitable practice.

Karen Finnin is a Physiotherapist, and the Director of Online Physio, who specialise in providing long distance Physiotherapy consultations to people who have trouble accessing traditional care. She's been a physio for 20 years, and worked in many rural and remote areas, here and abroad, and in that time identified the recurring need for patients in remote areas to have better access to quality care for injury management. Due to the success of Online Physio, she has become one of Australia's leading authorities when it comes to telehealth, and is passionate about opportunities that intersect between health, business and technology. In this chat with Pete, Karen reflects on the rise of telehealth in allied health, the technology needed to be an effective Telehealth provider, the funding for Telehealth, and some hot tips for aspiring entrepreneurs about what makes a stand out Telehealth platform.

Matt Bardsley is CEO of MedicalDirector, one of Australia's leading Practice Management Software providers. In this episode, Pete and Matt address questions like: is building software for healthcare a pain or pleasure economy? What's the right kind of investment to build innovative technology? Has humankind outpaced Darwinism?

Ariel Garten is CEO and co-founder of Muse - the brain sensing headband which is used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Bloomberg describes her "an innovator who completely remakes reality". She is featured in over 1000 articles and TV spots including Fortune, NBC, CBS, CNET, Business Inside (50 sexiest scientists!), Times India, Huffington Post, GQ, Tim Ferris, Popular Science, New York Times, and multiple times on CNN, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and Tech Crunch. She has a TED Talk called "Know Thy Self, With A Brain Scanner" and even does her own podcast about mindfulness and meditation called "Untangle". Ariel chats with Pete about the technology and science behind Muse, the application of meditation in a clinical context and how Aussies really really like meditation.

Rafic Habib is the CEO and co-founder of Clinic To Cloud, a cloud based practice management system that is striving to optimise Medica Practices and enabling better patient engagement. We talk about the adoption of cloud by the industry, and his team's approach to solving big problems in healthcare.

Katrina Otto is the Principal and Owner of Train IT Medical, and is the self proclaimed "Switzerland of HealthTech vendors" - she likes all of them. With a strong track record of delivering results, Katrina has carved out a niche as one of Australia's leading medical software trainers. She helps practices make informed decisions about how best to use technology to provide better healthcare. In this episode Katrina chats with Pete about the importance and intricacies of sharing health data, the adoption of tech in General Practice, and the growth of telehealth in Australia.

Dr Ben Hurst, the CEO and Founder of HotDoc - Australia’s most trusted patient engagement platform - chats with Pete about the adoption of technology in General Practice (including cloud), emerging technology and the importance of trust between clinicians and vendors.

Dr Maryam Sadeghi is CEO and co-founder of MetaOptima, the creators of DermEngine and MoleScope - innovative and intelligent technology for imaging, documentation and diagnosis of skin conditions and skin cancer, powered by artificial intelligence. Maryam talks with Pete about innovation, and the impact of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare.