Talking HealthTech

• 555 - The Vision for Patient Engagement. Dan Stinton, Healthengine

  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

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• 554 - Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech Part 3 of 3

  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

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• 553 - How To Turn Healthcare Data into AI-Driven Action

  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

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• 552 - Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech Part 2 of 3

  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

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• 551 - Guardrails, Regulation and Responsibility: Using AI Safely in Healthcare

  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

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