Talking HealthTech

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 t

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Louise Schaper is an expert in health informatics, and is passionate about transforming the health sector by leveraging technology to provide sustainable and better health for everyone. Louise is the CEO of HISA: Australia’s digital health community. In this role she brings together world-class clinicians, researchers, innovators and organisations from across biomedical, health and technology who are committed to the improvement of health outcomes enabled through innovative uses of technology and information. In this episode Louise talks to Pete about HISA and it’s role in the health community as well as the evolution of Digital Health.  Louise also delves into the importance of events to bring together the healthtech community, and the big themes in Health IT today. Overview [02:00] The background of HISA: Back in 1992 HISA was founded when computer technology adoption generally was low.  They became Australia digital health community.  Bringing the tribe of digital health ecosystem together  [03:40] HISA

Matiu Bush is both a clinician and a designer who founded One Good Street, a social impact platform to encourage neighbour initiated care for older residents at risk of social isolation and loneliness.  Matiu is the Deputy Director of the Health Transformation Lab at RMIT, designing cultures of innovation and creativity in healthcare.  He has a Master's degree in Public Health and broad clinical experience as an emergency, oncology and intensive care nurse and he is also a sexual health Nurse Practitioner. He’s a board member of Better Care Victoria and the Emerging Leaders Clinical Advisory Committee.  He is a super active member of HISA, a Rotarian, and a mentor for undergraduates and post graduate science students.   Overview [01:30] Neighbour initiated care lifts the social capital in neighbourhoods, it improves house prices and creates an alternative value economy.  The One Good Street is a platform to enable and scale those initiatives. [05:00] Salutogenic Design can be used to avoid building tech that

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

Frank & Lorraine Pyefinch of Best Practice Software are two iconic and down to earth players in the Australian Practice Management System game.   Dr Frank Pyefinch is not only founder of Best Practice, but also originally the founder of Medical Director - the number 1 and 2 practice management systems for Australian GPs today, and have been for many years.   As CEO of Best Practice, Frank brings with him a long and proud history working as a busy GP, and Lorraine as a registered nurse - so together they understand first hand the challenges and needs of the medical community when it comes to software and technology. Overview [02:07] Genie was first created because Frank doesn’t like Mac [02:45] The first PMS in Australia (Medical Director) was created by Frank because the poisons act changed in Australia allowing typed scripts, which included computer generated ones.  [06:38] The break-even point for MD back in the early 90s was 200 sites.  This seemed an ambitious goal at the time. Today Best Practice Sof

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

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

If you work in the healthcare industry you have a huge responsibility when it comes to managing sensitive patient information, whether you’re a big software vendor or a single physiotherapist, everyone needs to follow the same rules, and there are some pretty serious consequences for not doing it properly.  Do you know what your obligations are and if you’re doing a good job? Check this episode out to find out!   Who is Anna Johnston Anna Johnston is one of Australia’s most respected experts in privacy law and practice. She has qualifications in law, public policy and management, and 26 years’ experience in legal, policy and research roles.  Anna has a breadth of perspectives and a wealth of experience to dealing with privacy and data governance issues. She is the former Deputy Privacy Commissioner for NSW, so she knows the regulator’s perspective and since 2004 is the Director for consulting firm “Salinger Privacy”. Anna has been called upon to provide expert testimony before various Parliamentary inquiries

James Scollay is CEO of clinical and practice management software vendor Genie Solutions. He’s the former General Manager of MYOB, and was originally the executive chair of Genie before moving into the full time CEO gig early last year. Genie has earned tremendous  respect and trust from its customer base, with over 20 years in market as a software solution for Doctors.  More recently James has been focused on bringing the company into a new era of industry collaboration and technological advancements, enabling practices around Australia deliver a better patient experience and drive real practice efficiency.    In this episode James and Pete chat about the new Gentu cloud platform and it’s rapid growth (400% in the last quarter!)  and how more practices are adopting Cloud over Desktop solutions.  ☁️ They also talk about Private Equity funding and how it’s helped take the company from a family run business to a business with double the staff with much more focus on Development and User Experience.   

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

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