In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Dr Jaspreet Saini (GP, practice owner and Chief Medical Officer at HotDoc), Nicole Gartrell (Programme Director of Health Connect Australia at the Australian Digital Health Agency), Craig Hodges (Group Chief Executive at Best Practice Software), Jessica White (Executive Director of Partners & Strategies at Best Practice Software), Frank Pyefinch, and Lorraine Pyefinch about innovations, challenges, and collaboration shaping the future of primary care. They discuss technology’s evolving role in general practice - from AI-powered efficiencies and foundational IT, to national health information exchange and ongoing engagement with clinicians. This episode was recorded during the Best Practice Summit 2025 in Brisbane and features a selection of conversations with GPs, practice managers, and technology leaders captured by Talking HealthTech during the event.Key Takeaways:🖨️ Foundations Before Innovation: Dr Jaspreet Saini shares the importance of ensuring basic technology—like printers and seamless workflows—works reliably before implementing more advanced tools such as AI scribes in general practice.👨⚕️ Addressing Clinician Burnout: Nearly half of GPs are experiencing burnout; technology should be implemented to reduce everyday frustrations and increase efficiencies, rather than adding complexity.🎯 Real-World Problem Solving: Understanding daily tasks and pain points from frontline staff enables meaningful tech adoption. Stakeholder consultation—listening to GPs, nurses, and practice managers—remains central.🔗 Health Information Exchange: Nicole Gartrell outlines Health Connect Australia's approach to connecting healthcare information systems nationally, focusing on enabling easy, behind-the-scenes data sharing across different clinical platforms.☁️ Practice Management Software Evolution: Craig Hodges and Jessica White discuss the direction for Best Practice, including cloud migration, interoperability, and AI, while reaffirming commitment to customer feedback and practical functionality.🤝 Industry Collaboration: Continued engagement with vendors, clinicians, government, and software partners is essential for sustainable change and responding to evolving needs in primary care.🤖 Responsible AI Adoption: AI can facilitate easier access to patient data and streamline administrative tasks, but clinician involvement is necessary to guide responsible implementation and maintain patient safety.🎓 Community and Education: Events like the Best Practice Summit foster connection, networking, and collective learning, while ongoing education around technology and new tools is pivotal for clinicians and practice staff.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 Dan Stinton, CEO of Healthengine, about the changing landscape of digital health platforms in Australia. They discuss Dan’s transition from digital media into the health tech sector, Healthengine’s evolution from a healthcare marketplace to a comprehensive patient engagement platform, and the introduction of new technologies like AI-powered receptionists. The conversation also covers trends in patient engagement, the impact of cost-of-living pressures on healthcare access, and the future of technology-driven healthcare delivery. Key Takeaways🔄 Over the years, Healthengine has shifted from being purely a healthcare marketplace to emphasising patient engagement tools and SaaS products, such as online bookings, recalls, reminders, and custom forms.🌐 The platform is expanding beyond GPs to include dental, allied health, specialists, and pharmacy - aiming to enable patients to manage their entire care team from one place.🤖 Healthengine has launched "Helen," an AI receptionist designed to handle administrative phone calls for GP clinics, allowing reception staff to focus on more complex tasks. Helen is already being piloted and operates strictly on non-clinical tasks for privacy and accuracy.📊 Research by Healthengine indicates around 80% of people are comfortable interacting with bots for administrative healthcare tasks, especially given the benefit of never waiting on hold.💰 Cost-of-living pressures are causing more Australians to delay essential medical care, as reflected in the upcoming Australian Healthcare Index—a survey run in partnership with Patients Australia.💻 Virtual care is on the rise, but still makes up a small proportion of Healthengine's bookings, with most telehealth appointments occurring outside regular business hours for transactional needs like repeat prescriptions.🎯 Healthengine's current strategy is to continue investment in patient engagement technology, leveraging AI for administrative efficiency without entering the space of clinical care itself.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 Rob Milsom from NZTE, along with Matt Russell and Matt Boyles from Aranz Medical, Will Hewitt from HeartLab, Greg O’Grady from Alimetry, and Abby Moore from Chiptech.Together, they explore the latest developments in New Zealand’s healthtech ecosystem, focusing on the future of medical technology and diagnostics, specifically AI, wearable diagnostics, medtech, and the need to keep patients, clinicians, and the wider system at the centre of innovation. The episode showcases how Kiwi companies are driving global impact in wound care, cardiac diagnostics, gut health, and personal emergency response systems.This episode is part 3 of a 3-part series created by Talking HealthTech in partnership with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), exploring how New Zealand’s healthtech innovators are taking their ideas from home to the world. Key Takeaways⚙️ Silhouette, developed by Aranz Medical, is transforming wound care through 3D imaging and data-driven insights, making wound management more efficient and scalable in both hospital and community settings.🤖 HeartLab is advancing cardiac diagnostics using AI, with a focus on enabling clinicians to easily and quickly access and interpret cardiac scans remotely, emphasising speed, workflow, and responsiveness across global markets.📏 Alimetry provides a wearable diagnostic solution for gut disorders, allowing for non-invasive measurement and better clinical insight into gastrointestinal symptoms, while also showcasing the process of commercialising research-driven technology in global health markets.👵 Chiptech is delivering technology-enabled care systems for ageing populations, offering scalable and adaptable personal emergency response solutions that support independence at home and address broader sector challenges.🔬 The export journeys of these companies highlight the value of deep research, user insight, collaboration, and tailored solutions in creating medtech products that resonate globally while addressing local needs.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 Rafic Habib, Managing Director for APAC and the Middle East at Clinovera, the healthcare division of First Line Software. The conversation explores Rafic's extensive healthcare IT experience and delves into how Clinovera and First Line Software work with organisations ranging from start-ups to government bodies to address the challenges of healthcare data management. The discussion covers the rise of generative AI and its applications, how to harness unstructured health data, the ongoing impact of interoperability standards like HL7 and FHIR, and the practical considerations for implementing new health IT tools within complex healthcare systems.Key Takeaways:🤖 Generative AI (Gen AI) is increasingly sought after by healthcare organisations. While the technology presents new opportunities, there is industry-wide uncertainty about potential applications and best practices, especially with sensitive health data.👨💻 Clinovera provides a wide range of services, including Gen AI consulting, software engineering, interoperability support (with a deep focus on HL7 and FHIR), application architecture, and cloud integration across Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.📄 Unstructured data, such as handwritten notes, scanned records, faxes, and PDFs, continues to be a barrier for efficient healthcare delivery. This type of data is pervasive in everyday practice and remains difficult to extract and integrate into electronic health records (EHRs) and health information systems.⚙️ The team at Clinovera has developed AI-driven tools that can ingest, analyse, and structure unstructured data from multiple sources (including different languages and poor handwriting), turning it into interoperable formats like FHIR. These capabilities allow clinicians and healthcare administrators to more easily find, analyse, and leverage crucial patient data that would otherwise remain buried.🔬 As organisations look to better integrate AI and automation, considerations like compliance, security, information governance, and the ability to deploy solutions on-site or in the cloud come to the fore. Customisation is key to meeting diverse and region-specific data requirements and regulatory standards.⏳ The best time to engage engineering support and consulting, according to Rafic, is as early as possible — whether organisations are just shaping their digital health strategy or already knee-deep in a digital transformation project. Early, collaborative engagement with engineering partners ensures that real-world problems are addressed, and organisations benefit from broader expertise during planning, pilots, and scale-up.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 Kieran Holland from Streamliners, Ron Tenenbaum from The Clinician, Dr Stephen Pool from Core Schedule, and Niru Rajakumar from McCrae Tech about the role of people-centred innovation in healthcare.The discussion explores how New Zealand companies are redesigning clinical workflows, supporting patient engagement, and implementing technology solutions that bridge policy and practice, empower both clinicians and patients, and support sustainable system transformation.This episode is part 2 of a miniseries produced in collaboration with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), focusing on exporting New Zealand’s health technology to global markets.Key Takeaways🧑🤝👩 People are Central to Health Innovation: Across each conversation, a core theme is putting people—clinicians, patients, and users—at the centre of digital health solutions. Listening to real-world needs and collaborating with frontline staff is critical to building trust in new technologies.🔬 HealthPathways Bridges Policy and Practice: HealthPathways, supported by Streamliners, offers evidence-based clinical guidance blended with local system navigation, reducing variation in care and enhancing collaboration. Its model showcases the benefits of cross-jurisdictional learning and the opportunities for more national collaboration, including in places like Australia.🩺 PROMs and PREMs Shape Value-Based Care: Ron Tenenbaum explains how Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are increasingly fundamental in value-based healthcare. The challenge is not only technological, but also cultural—integrating the patient voice requires clinician buy-in and workflow adaptation.💼 Workforce Management and Fatigue Risk: Dr Stephen Pool outlines the real-world consequences of manual, disconnected rostering—such as clinician fatigue and increased risk to patient safety. Core Schedule demonstrates how digitised, clinician-driven rostering can reduce administrative burden and improve wellbeing and compliance.🏥 Hospital Modernisation Relies on Flexible, Modular Tech: Niru Rajakumar highlights the growing complexity and workforce shortages in hospitals, pointing to the need for modular, flexible hospital information systems. Starting with small changes and scaling smartly, rather than implementing one-size-fits-all solutions, can deliver value efficiently.🤖 AI’s Role is Foundational, Not a Quick Fix: Each guest emphasises that emerging tools like AI should be built on solid foundations of system integration and must address frontline realities, rather than being seen as a “silver bullet.”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 Mark Nevin, an executive leader and policy strategist in healthcare, and Dr. Sandra LJ Johnson, a paediatrician and expert in medical law, about the duties and responsibilities of the medical workforce in overseeing artificial intelligence (AI) in health services. The discussion explores the evolving regulatory landscape, medical duty of care, risk management, and the need for collaboration between clinicians, technologists, and regulators as AI becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare delivery.Key Takeaways🤖 Regulation of AI in healthcare should be risk-based, leveraging existing frameworks while addressing the unique challenges posed by dynamic and learning systems.⚙️ The duty of care for clinicians extends to understanding the tools and technologies they use, including the basics of how AI systems are trained and their limitations.🏥 Adoption of AI in clinical settings requires a holistic approach with multiple levels of guardrails—regulatory, specialist, clinician-patient, and consumer feedback—to ensure safety and accountability.👩🏫 Ongoing education and competency development are essential for clinicians, as medical colleges and educational bodies are now incorporating AI and digital health into their curricula.🤝 Collaboration across disciplines—between clinicians, engineers, software developers, regulators, and consumers—is key to safe and effective AI adoption in healthcare.✒️ The complexity of liability in AI-driven care highlights the importance of clear governance and delineation of responsibilities among stakeholders before issues arise.🌏 Australia is keeping pace with global advancements in AI regulation and implementation, drawing on strong collaboration between its scientific, medical, and regulatory communities.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
We’re excited to collaborate with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) to bring you a mini-series of episodes titled: “Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech”, exploring how New Zealand’s healthtech innovators are taking their ideas from home to the world. This episode is part 1 of 3, so stay tuned for more episodes in the series coming soon!In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch and Rob Milsom from New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) introduce Rei Ishikawa (Karo Data Management), Paris Majot (Orion Health), Phil Xue (Odin Health), and Nick Burns (2iQ Health). The episode focuses on how New Zealand healthtech companies are powering smart healthcare through digital infrastructure, interoperability, and data-driven solutions, both at home and globally. They cover themes like hospital capacity management, primary/community care innovation, digital integration at massive scale, and the role of credible AI in healthcare transformation.Key Takeaways👨💻 NZTE highlights New Zealand’s approach to healthtech: innovative, necessity-driven, and values-led, with global ambition to solve hard problems in healthcare delivery.🏢 Odin Health’s journey from a small NZ operation to supporting over 450 million outpatient visits globally is driven by addressing real pain points in system integration, stability, and scalability.🌍 Real-world examples show how Norwegian digital infrastructure has been deployed not just in NZ but also at scale in large Chinese hospital settings, demonstrating the power and flexibility of Kiwi technology.🤝 Karo Data Management’s work underscores the importance of trust, indigenous values, and capturing holistic wellbeing data in primary and community care, making outcomes more relevant and reporting more meaningful.📶 Orion Health’s focus is on seamless data connectivity, patient engagement, and operational analytics, supporting clinicians with unified clinical records and enabling large-scale AI-driven workflows for preventative care.🏥 2iQ Health explores proactive public hospital capacity management, making hospital operations more efficient by anticipating demand patterns, maximising limited resources, and streamlining planning for leaders and clinicians.🔗 Across all companies, the importance of interoperability, real-time data access, cloud infrastructure, and patient-centred design is emphasised as vital for improving both patient outcomes and cost efficiency in healthcare systems.🤖 AI’s role is becoming increasingly important, but its effectiveness relies on access to quality, well-structured clinical data and meaningful integration into existing workflows.💡 A global healthtech export mindset, rooted in strong local values, positions New Zealand companies to partner with Australian organisations and those beyond for scalable healthcare innovation.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 Patrick Hart, a medical doctor and product lead at Concentric Health, about the vital topic of consent in healthcare. The discussion explores digital consent solutions, the current challenges with paper-based consent processes, how shared decision making can be improved, and what modernising the consent process means for patient experience and clinical outcomes. Patrick shares insights from Concentric's experience in the UK and their upcoming expansion into the Australian and New Zealand healthcare systems.Key Takeaways✅ Consent in healthcare is often treated as a tick-box paper exercise, conducted at the last minute with minimal patient engagement.🗨️ Shared decision making involves clinicians and patients collaborating, leading to better treatment choices and improved patient outcomes.🖥️ Concentric Health provides a digital, template-based consent platform that standardises information while allowing personalisation for each patient.📈 Standardised digital consent can increase shared-decision making from 28% (with paper) to 72%, significantly improving patient involvement.📊 Digitising consent reduces administrative burden, decreases on-the-day treatment delays and cancellations, and minimises errors and medico-legal risks.🌍 In the UK, Concentric is used in over 30 NHS organisations and across private health groups, entirely replacing paper consent in many settings.👩💻 The current Australian consent process mirrors where the UK was several years ago; there is opportunity for improvement through digital adoption.⚙️ Digital consent tools enhance efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and improve patient and clinician satisfaction.🔍 Concentric is seeking pilot partners in Australia and New Zealand to adapt and deploy their digital consent system.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 Leon Young, Founder of Cogniss, Dr Sarah Hanieh, paediatrician and public health researcher, Professor Caroline Donovan, clinical psychologist at Griffith University, and Adjunct Professor Annette Schmiede. The episode covers the 2025 Priority Digital Health Challenge, delivered by Cogniss AWS and the Validatron, supported by the AIDH, the Digital Health CRC, NextGen, and Talking HealthTech. You’ll hear from members of the expert judging panel and the two winners from the challenge.We explore how digital health solutions are being co-designed and developed for underserved, priority populations, with a focus on bridging the gap between research, evidence-based innovation, and real-world impact. Key Takeaways🏢 The Priority Digital Health Challenge supports the creation of digital health solutions for underserved and priority populations, focusing on real-world needs that often do not fit traditional commercial models.🤝 Initiatives like the Challenge help surface solutions arising from lived experience and subject matter expertise, particularly for communities and conditions often overlooked by mainstream systems.👩⚕️ A strong emphasis is placed on making the process less daunting for health professionals and researchers, who may not be traditional entrepreneurs, by avoiding typical startup competition formats.⚙️ Winning projects included Project Shine, a culturally tailored nutrition literacy tool for refugee and migrant communities, and Lights Out, an evidence-based child sleep intervention programme being transformed into an app.💰 There is a significant challenge in translating research-led solutions into accessible, procured offerings within health systems due to limitations in procurement pathways and funding.🗣️ Democratizing innovation opportunities and using co-design principles ensures voices from diverse communities are heard, leading to more impactful and culturally relevant solutions.🌏 Upcoming initiatives, like the Ripple programme, aim to scale the Challenge internationally, provide more sustained support to cohorts of solutions, and address systemic gaps in distribution and uptake.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 Bettina McMahon (CEO of HealthDirect Australia), Sanka Amadoru (Geriatrician and Founding Director of ARIA Health), and Elise Ford (Account Manager at Informedix) about the challenges and opportunities involved in building and sustaining multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) in healthcare.They explore approaches to fostering effective collaboration across hospitals, the community, and aged care settings, examining the key barriers such as siloed systems, workforce shortages, and the evolving role of technology, including AI. This episode was recorded live online as part of a special session with Talking HealthTech company partners, Infomedix. Key Takeaways🗨️ Barriers to MDT Effectiveness: The panel discusses the main obstacles to effective multidisciplinary teams, with the majority of the audience survey identifying siloed systems, data, and technology as the biggest barrier, followed by poor communication and unclear team roles.🧑🤝👩 The Consumer-Centred Approach: Future-ready teams will need to be structured around patient-centred care. Consumers are increasingly expecting to be active participants, managing their own health conditions with support from their care teams, technology, and peer communities.👨💻 Integration of Technology: Technology is seen as essential for providing visibility and coordination across MDTs. However, it's stressed that technology solutions must align with the real-world workflow of clinical teams and shouldn’t add unnecessary administrative burden.🤖 Role of AI in Healthcare Teams: There is optimism about the potential for AI to augment MDTs, from triaging patients to supporting decision-making. However, adoption must be pragmatic, with safety, trust, and workforce adaptation in focus.🔍 Evolving Models of Care: The panel highlights real-world MDT case studies in settings like ‘Better at Home’ rehabilitation, aged care, and digital health navigation, underscoring both successful integrations and ongoing gaps, especially where external providers or systems remain siloed.🩺 Pragmatism and Flexibility: The importance of practical flexibility in MDTs is emphasised, both in adapting to unique patient needs and in navigating imperfect or incomplete technology solutions.💼 Workforce Pressures and Training: The growing demands on the healthcare workforce, particularly in nursing, are creating urgency for technology to take on a greater role. The significance of digital literacy and ongoing professional development is also explored.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 Silvia Fazekas and Tracy Pemberton from Miller Blue Group about the critical role of change management in the successful implementation of digital health technology.Drawing on nearly two decades of practical experience in Australian healthcare and digital transformation, Sylvia and Tracy share their perspectives on the people side of tech projects, the importance of user engagement, and the need for ongoing support beyond the initial rollout. The conversation covers strategies for ensuring benefits realisation, managing stakeholders at all levels, and the concept of "enthusiasm as a service" to drive adoption of digital solutions in complex healthcare environments.Key Takeaways🤝 Change management is essential in digital health implementations because technology alone does not deliver benefits—people and processes are key.👩⚕️ Healthcare environments are complicated, and technology is often not the top priority for clinicians dealing with immediate patient care.🏥 Understanding clinical context, including terminology and frontline pressures, is crucial for effective change management.➕ Implementation support should go beyond emails and documentation, providing hands-on, in-context assistance and follow-up to ensure new systems embed successfully.🗣️ Engaging everyone, from frontline clinicians to executive leadership, is important for successful adoption. Senior leaders should understand and even use the systems being implemented.💰 Change management is often under-resourced in budgets, yet ongoing user support is necessary to realise the full benefits of digital transformation.🫂 Peer-to-peer support among users and visibility of improvements based on user feedback can significantly increase engagement and buy-in.🗨️ Users are encouraged to engage with change teams, provide feedback, and approach new systems with an open mind to maximise productivity gains and improve patient 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 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