Talking HealthTech

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.