Talking HealthTech

Dr April Armstrong is a rural GP with a passion for business.  She is the CEO of Business For Doctors, a social network and business advisory firm for Australian clinicians to help them run a better business. In addition to that, she owns two medical practices and has won a bunch of awards and invested in various initiatives supporting health care.  She also actively supports medical students and overseas trained doctors during their transition into the Australian medical system. In this interview you will hear the April Armstrong story (a fascinating one filled with babies, farms and private investigators…) as well as the origins of Business For Doctors. April provides insights into the history of Medicare and shares her thoughts on the handling of telehealth billing.  She also covers the joys of providing a healthcare service in rural and regional Australia. More information and full show notes located here.

Dr Karen Price is a clinical GP, and Past Practice Owner. And up until recently she was the Deputy Chair, Victorian Faculty of the RACGP - she stepped down from this role as she is now a Candidate for the RACGP Presidential Elections. Karen is also the Co-Founder and administrator of GPs Down Under (GPDU) - a membership community featuring nearly 8,000 GPs focused on peer learning, peer advocacy, and peer support. In this interview, learn about the rise of social media and its role in clinician support and education.   You’ll hear about Karen’s bid to become the new RACGP President and what she will bring to the role. You will also hear of the impact of telehealth on the Australian GP community, and the benefits of patients taking a more active role in their healthcare. For complete show notes about this interview and many more resources for Australian healthcare providers about technology, check out the Talking HealthTech website.

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.