Talking HealthTech

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Greg Rosenbauer, CEO and co-founder of Your Brain Health, and Lynette Reeves, Digital Health Lead at Miroma Project Factory (MPF), about the process of building digital health solutions. The conversation explores challenges faced by founders, the importance of early-stage consultation before writing code, and the unique hurdles of commercialising research and scaling health technology products.Key Takeaways🔍 Building digital health products should not start with coding. Early focus needs to be on understanding the problem, the end users, and identifying who will actually pay for the solution.🧠 Validation through stakeholder engagement, workflow mapping, and customer experience analysis is essential before moving into technology development.✍️ Health technology projects require consideration of compliance, regulation, integration with electronic health records (EHR/EMR), and can rarely be solved in a single development cycle.📃 Many innovations stem from clinicians or researchers dealing with fragmented or inefficient processes, often starting as paper-based or spreadsheet solutions before evolving into scalable platforms.👩‍🏫 The commercialisation journey is especially complex for academic researchers, as there can be a significant gap between evidence generation and market readiness. Consultancy and grant support are key enablers.🏥 Accelerators, grants, and support organisations like ANDHealth and Cicada Innovations are available in Australia to help bridge the “messy middle” between research and commercialisation, but the process remains competitive and challenging.💻 Co-design with diverse clients and iterative development enable digital health solutions to remain flexible and relevant as user needs and market opportunities evolve.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with James Sneddon from Hyphen Health, along with advocates and creators Harper Valentine and Nova Hawthorne, about sexual health stigma and the systems that need to be fixed to make healthcare genuinely accessible for marginalised and underserved communities.Key Takeaways♀️Sexual health stigma remains a major barrier: Many individuals, particularly sex workers, avoid testing and seeking care due to experiences of judgement and misunderstanding in traditional health settings.👩‍💻 Online services increase accessibility and dignity: Virtual clinics and online platforms provide more tailored, empathetic, and user-friendly health services for sex workers, offering greater privacy and speed.🧑‍🤝‍🧑Importance of co-design and community feedback: Involving people with lived experience in the design and ongoing improvement of healthcare services is essential for genuine patient-centred care.👩‍⚕️ Advice for practitioners and the ecosystem: Treating everyone with dignity, listening to patient feedback, and maintaining a continuous inclusivity feedback loop are crucial for breaking down stigma and improving care.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, host Peter Birch speaks with Nick White from Alcidion about the challenges, strategies, and frameworks involved in developing business cases for digital technology initiatives in healthcare, with a particular focus on patient flow.Nick shares his experience on aligning technology adoption with organisational priorities, the complexity of healthcare funding and stakeholders, and ways to evaluate and communicate the impact of digital solutions, including real-time data platforms and AI capabilities.Key Takeaways:💼 Business cases in healthcare are complex due to the critical nature of outcomes, the many stakeholder groups, and unique funding models.🗣️ The aim is to explain, not justify, the rationale for adopting digital health solutions, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities rather than merely convincing stakeholders.😷 Patient flow is a national priority in Australia, presenting challenges such as ageing populations, staff shortages, and resource constraints that require better decision-making tools and operational workflows.👩‍⚕️Unlike other sectors, healthcare business cases must balance quantifiable financial benefits with intangible benefits like patient experience, staff wellbeing, and clinician workflows.🏛️ Frameworks like the quadruple aim (patient experience, population health, financial impact, and clinician experience) help structure business cases to reflect the multi-faceted value of technology.🔍 Using independent impact studies and evidence-based research is key to substantiating expected benefits and outcomes in business cases.♒ Ripple effects, such as reductions in length of stay or administrative burden, can free up resources elsewhere in the system, but translating these benefits into financial figures can be nuanced.💡Strategic alignment with existing technical architecture and organisational direction is essential to avoid unnecessary complexity and to maximise the impact of digital investments.🩺 Clinician engagement and change management are crucial, with a focus on making improvements that support, rather than disrupt, patient care.🤖 The future of patient flow technology involves greater AI integration, advanced mobile capabilities, and real-time information delivery at the point of care.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Dr Dennis Rausch, Chief Medical Officer at Dedalus, and Viti Handyside, ANZ Country Product Manager for ORBIS at Dedalus, about the importance and benefits of structured data in Health IT. The episode explores the challenges and opportunities associated with embedding structured data in electronic medical records (EMRs), the impact on clinicians’ daily workflows, and the broader implications for patient outcomes, operational efficiency, and health system innovation. They cover both local and global perspectives, examining how structured data enables better care, supports research, and sets the foundation for advances such as artificial intelligence in healthcare.Key Takeaways:🏥 Structured data in healthcare is critical for accurate data analytics, decision support, interoperability, and operational efficiency.📝 Free-text notes, while common in clinical workflows, can create ambiguity, increase cognitive load, and make it difficult for machines to interpret and leverage health data.🔗 Embedding structured data entry into clinicians’ natural workflows is key to adoption, reducing manual data entry burden, and improving data quality.🤖 New technologies, including ambient AI, natural language processing, and smart EMR interfaces, are enabling more seamless capture and utilisation of both structured and unstructured clinical information.🔍 Structured data enhances research capabilities, supports the development of digital twins, reduces errors, facilitates compliance, and helps avoid costly duplicate testing and administrative inefficiencies.🌍 There is still a journey required for widespread adoption in regions like Australia, but growing interest and investment in digital health is driving progress.💊 Future healthcare ecosystems will rely even more on structured data to power clinical decision support, population health analytics, and personalised medicine.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, host Peter Birch speaks with Marvin Malcolm, Head of Data and Integration Architecture at Telstra Health; Duncan Weatherston, CEO of Smile Digital Health; and Keith Kranz, Manager ICT at SA Pathology.The discussion explores the role of interoperability and data standardisation in modern healthcare, focusing on connected care. The guests share their perspectives from both Australian and global viewpoints, diving into real-world experiences, challenges, and future solutions in pathology and health information exchange.The episode looks at technology choices like HL7 FHIR, the evolution of data-driven healthcare, and how digital transformation impacts clinicians and patients.This episode is part four of a 4-part series by Talking HealthTech in collaboration with Telstra Health and Smile Digital Health called Connected Care: Bridging Gaps in Modern Healthcare.Key Takeaways🏥 Interoperability Requires Collaboration: Achieving interoperability in healthcare demands participation from a broad community - no single organisation can accomplish it alone. Collaboration across healthcare providers, government agencies, and technology partners is essential.🌍 Australian and Global Perspectives: The interoperability and data fragmentation challenges are not unique to Australia. Similar issues (including North America and Europe) are seen globally, but approaches can differ based on local regulations, systems, and clinical workflows.ℹ️ Role of Standards like FHIR: Moving towards data-driven models and FHIR-based solutions is central to breaking down data silos, improving data quality, and ensuring meaningful use of clinical information.💻 Patient-Centred, Computable Data: The shift to giving patients direct access to health information and making results more understandable is highlighted. Clinicians and patients benefit from better visualisation, interpretability, and predictive analytics.🤖 Future-Proofing Healthcare: The ability to scale and adapt technology (such as with FHIR) ensures that healthcare organisations can meet growing data, research, and clinical needs, as well as adapt to ongoing innovations, including AI and predictive modelling.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, host Peter Birch speaks with healthcare leaders and innovators, including Auður Gudmundsdottir from Reykjavik City, Paula Bellostas Muguerza from Kearney, and fellow podcast host Shubs, along with Sophie Turner as co-host. The episode explores the digital transformation of community care services in Iceland, global efforts in women's health equity, practical challenges for clinicians working in health tech, and the impact of innovation in underserved populations.This episode was recorded during HLTH Europe 2025 in Amsterdam. To catch all the discussions that Talking HealthTech had during HLTH, including discussions with all the Australian organisations participating on the ANDHealth delegation, visit a dedicated playlist on our YouTube channel.Key Takeaways👴 Digital Transformation in Community Care: Reykjavik is implementing digital health solutions to assist elderly residents stay independent at home, including video visits, automated medication dispensers, and remote rehabilitation. Challenges include workforce shortages, shifting staff mindsets, and the need for national strategy.🏥 Scaling Technology in Care Delivery: There is a significant opportunity to expand remote care models, with estimates that up to 40% of current home nursing could be delivered through technology-enabled services.🤰 Women's Health Equity on a Global Stage: Women's health remains a critical topic globally, with a focus on making systemic changes in clinical research, guideline development, investment, and practical steps organisations can take daily. The importance of investment to drive real innovation was highlighted.👩‍⚕️ Role of Clinicians in Digital Health: Integrating clinicians into health tech teams requires a shift from token advisory roles to active participation in product development and quality improvement. Building collaborative relationships before formalising processes helps generate better outcomes.🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Underserved Communities and Technology Implementation: Global lessons can be learnt from the use of digital health and AI in low- and middle-income settings. Emphasising context-specific solutions and working backwards from real community needs is more effective than technology-driven interventions.Timestamps00:00 - 01:26 Introduction01:28 - 14:53 Audur Gudmundsdottir, Reykjavík City Welfare Department14:57 - 23:00 Paula Bellostas Muguerza, Kearney23:04 - 36:10 Shubs Upadhyay, Global Perspectives on Digital HealthCheck out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Ida Tin from Femtech Assembly, Jessica Morley from the Yale Digital Ethics Center, Sharmini Alagaratnam from DNV, and Ricardo Baptista Leite from HealthAI about the evolution of digital health in Europe, the future of femtech, responsible AI in healthcare, the challenges of synthetic data, and the importance of data governance. They highlight perspectives on innovation, ethics, and the role of technology across health systems.This episode was recorded at HIMSS Europe 2025 in Paris and features a selection of the conversations captured at the event on Podcast Row. For a full list of interviews recorded during the event, check out the dedicated playlist on the Talking HealthTech YouTube channel.Key Takeaways👩‍⚕️ Femtech as an Industry: Ida Tin, who coined the term "femtech," discusses the journey of women's health technologies from niche to a substantial market sector, underlining both the business case and societal impacts of investment in women’s health.👩‍👧‍👦 Societal Infrastructure and Women’s Health: Recognising women’s health as foundational to society’s functioning, paralleling other types of infrastructure, and emphasising the regenerative nature of investing in this area.🤖 Responsible AI Implementation: Ricardo Baptista Leite addresses the need for intentional and purposeful adoption of AI in health, stressing governance structures, regulatory frameworks, and the urgency of scalable, ethical deployment especially in low- and middle-income countries.🤝 Synthetic Data and Trust: Sharmini Alagaratnam explains the growing use of synthetic data in healthcare for AI development, its role in addressing data scarcity and privacy, and the need for clear quality frameworks to assess effectiveness and representation.⚖️ Ethics of AI and Health Data Usage: Jessica Morley explores the complexities of secondary data use, the balance between personalisation and population health, privacy risks, and the ethical considerations required when deploying AI and data-driven solutions in healthcare.🛜 Data Sharing as an Enabler: All guests touch on the need for better data sharing across health systems to unlock value not just for individuals, but also for wider population health and cross-industry insights.Timestamps00:00 - 01:02 Introduction01:03 - 11:11 Ida Tin, Femtech Assembly11:15 - 21:49 Jessica Morley, Yale Digital Ethics Centre21:54 - 32:06 Sharmini Alagaratnam, DNV32:10 - 49:06 Ricardo Baptista Leite, HealthAICheck out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, host Peter Birch speaks with Stacey Clifford and Chris Roll from Daedalus about interoperability, structured data, and ambulance workflows in the Australian healthcare context. The discussion covers the development and implementation of the amPHI platform, which enables connected electronic patient care records for ambulance services, and explores how structured data and interoperability are being used to transform pre-hospital care, support clinical decision-making, and improve continuity of care. The episode also touches on the real-world deployment of amPHI in South Australia and lessons learned from international implementations.Key Takeaways:📄 amPHI is not simply a digitised version of paper records, but a comprehensive electronic patient care record (ePCR) system designed for ambulance services. It allows live data sharing between dispatched units and hospitals, facilitating smooth patient handovers and early hospital preparation.✍️ The use of structured data and standard nomenclature (e.g. SNOMED CT-AU) supports accurate, consistent, and interoperable documentation. This reduces reliance on free text, enhances reporting, and underpins meaningful data mining for quality reviews and clinical research.Integrating amPHI with national health systems like My Health Record allows paramedics not only to access patient histories in real-time but also to contribute records directly, improving patient care and information continuity across the healthcare system.🚑 The rollout in South Australia marks a transition from paper to digital for ambulance records, promising single patient records viewable by all involved and feeding back into My Health Record. Clinicians are engaged and eager to use the new platform.🤝 The discussion highlights that implementing standards like FHIR is only one part of effective interoperability. True benefits come from aligning on profiles, terminology, and ongoing collaboration between providers.🔍 Case studies from Denmark demonstrate how a mature digital ambulance record system can yield rich data for research and care improvement, such as assessing oxygen delivery to trauma patients.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Jane Thompson, Chief Product Officer at MediRecords, and Dr. Max Mollenkopf, a GP and practice owner in Newcastle.The discussion explores the evolving landscape of patient empowerment through access to their own health records, the impact of technology on general practice, and how MediRecords is shaping both the clinician and patient experience.The episode covers the challenges and opportunities in digitising healthcare workflows, the changing expectations of consumers, and the development of patient portals as a bridge between clinicians and their patients.Key Takeaways:👩‍💻 Patient empowerment and engagement are becoming increasingly important, with younger, digitally-savvy patients expecting more access and control over their health information.🏥 Traditional general practice models are under pressure from new customer-centred digital solutions and changing funding structures.🖥️ MediRecords is developing and delivering a patient portal, Engage, that allows patients to access appointments, results, documents, and to-do lists assigned by their GP.🔍 Data transparency and default sharing of lab results, referral letters, and clinical notes enhance patient experience and continuity of care.🩺 Technology must serve both clinicians and patients, requiring solutions that streamline clinician workflows while also delivering value and usability to patients.📃 Uptake of digital solutions like Engage is strong when patients see immediate, clear value, such as access to their own records for sharing with healthcare teams.📈 Efficiency, productivity, and removing friction from administrative tasks are critical for independent clinics to thrive.👩‍⚕️ The healthcare landscape is shifting, with more competition, consumer awareness, and an increasing need for innovative, validated health data integrations, such as wearable device tracking and AI-enabled workflows.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

Virtual healthcare has become a fixture in the Australian health landscape, but not everyone has the same privilege to easy access. Distance, availability, digital literacy, and cultural safety remain major barriers, especially in regional, rural, and remote communities. This episode of Talking HealthTech with Margot Morton from CareZen explores how virtual care pods, purpose-built environments for virtual care, are attempting to bridge these gaps. The conversation delves into the design, deployment, and early impact of these solutions, and what it takes to improve healthcare access across diverse Australian communities.Access the full episode article: www.talkinghealtech.com/podcastJoin the Talking HealthTech newsletter: www.talkinghealthtech.com/newsletterBecome a THT+ Member: www.talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus